Yay! It’s the 100th post spectacular for this journal! Wooooooo! (does happy dance) Wow, I started my journal about three months prior to Serenity’s and already hers is over five times larger! (giggles) I suppose since I’ve long lived in the suburbs, it is not exactly easy to get around a lot and travel, and when you are isolated from the city and the cradle of life, you tend to lose a keen sense of savoir-faire that could well have made great posts in here every day. But I’m not complaining. Some days we’ve just got to enjoy and live the day from sunrise to sunset. While Passions feels like home, I also am aware life shouldn’t be lived staring at a screen all day, as it is important to find balance in all you do.

Woo-hoo, the Colorado caucuses were this Tuesday, and I placed my sentimental vote for Kucinich. I’ll be supporting Kerry no matter what come November and intend to dedicate myself in promoting the democrats for a change in leadership, though Kucinich has long been my favorite of the field. We desperately need someone who can rule with hope rather than fear, and Kucinich has an uplifting spirit that could generate a return to blue skied diplomacy again. Politics needs a fresh face and Kucinich has been my idol as of late.

Speaking of which, this week is Election Week at the University of Colorado and I’ve been heavily engaging in college politics this week. I am a co-head of the movement “180 Degree Shift At The 11th Hour”. This week I have set up a campaign booth on the University Memorial Center, speaking and encouraging everyone into this movement, working to get our referendum passed. Our mission is to keep universities from investing and offering financial support from corporations that violate human rights and destroy the environment (e.g Halliburton, Bechtel, Texaco), take $70 million of student and public money from the world’s wealthiest multi-national corporations and back into the communities in a practical and ethical manner (prevent universities from investing from the stock market), work to free all universities from sweatshop tie-ins, valuing and fighting for women’s rights (90% of sweatshop workers are women and girls), continue to fight for a shift to non-toxic alternatives in industry to save our environment and educate young people of the value of our environment, and make sure all profit universities make are made without investing in criminal corporations or the slaughtering of forests and rainforests.

We believe our society is being raped with myths, and minds are not for sale. Did you know, for instance, that in 1997, the UN Conference on Trade and Development reported that wages for unskilled workers had dropped by 20 to 30 percent in developing countries that had liberalized trade laws to attract manufacturing business from developed countries? Sweat shops are prominent forces in these very countries, and even here in the U.S, the most richest country in the world, sweat shops remain a curse. In fact, the U.S Department of Labor reported that more than half of the 22,000 American sweatshops violate minimum wage and overtime laws, and 75% of U.S garment manufacturers violate the health, medical, and safety rights of their workers. Yet we continue to be deceived by the boondoggling braggadocio dripping from the mouths of the tycoons and we are treated like their meat tickets. Another such misconception is thrown around that when multi-national corporations spread into less-developed countries, all those who live in poverty have lives changed for the better, which also is a lie. In fact, in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, where workers make clothing for Disney, they get paid $2.15 a day, while their expenses daily are at $6.12. Inevitably at this rate no money can ever be saved in their cookie jars for their children’s college funds, to pay for their water and heating bills, even for a single run to the grocery store. They fail to even reach one-third of the bar of an average family income. 180 11’s mission is to expose the underbelly of these myths, and once and for all force corporations to come clean and defend civil rights to the far extent.

Ultimately, we also are working to pass this referendum to protect human rights and democracy in general. Though this is a young organization, we believe we are a great representation and archetypal of civil respect, freedom and dignity, and we believe those 27 million slaves forced in labor for corporations should also be freed and respected. CU has contracts with Nike in Indonesia and has a bond from the government of Colombia, investing in the drug trade there, both known for their brutality on other individuals. And we are fervent in forcing CU and other colleges in illegal pursuits to shed apart those contracts and invest only in companies who have honorable, respectful working environments.

We are zero-tolerant on the heinous atrocities of corporations who support war, harm individuals and harm the environment. We’re working to topple CU’s contract with Lockheed Martin, who make weapons out of depleted uranium waste and dumped hydrazine rocket fuel into backyards, killing 13 children, Coors, who Peter Coors and his drunken colleagues have dumped toxic and industrial waste into the Lowry Landfill, poisoning river systems and the public sewer system, DOW Chemical, who makes napalm jelly used in war weapons and machines and the creator of chemicals, particularly dioxin, which have damaged immune systems, nervous systems, genes and are the guilty conscience behind the Union Carbide gas tragedy in Bhapal, India, killing 20,000 and causing untold ecological and environmental damage for years to come, poisoning any children who may play nearby the old factory, Peabody Coal, which has relocated 12,000 Native Americans from the Four Corners to destroy their land to excavate for coal, Texaco, whose barrels of oil have killed species, people, and rainforests in Ecuador, and Chevron, whose helicopter shot at Nigerian protesters against their violation of human rights along with Shell oil. Along with all other companies who manifest greed such as this, we will have nothing to do with their avarice brickbat lust and work to emancipate our institutions from their destructive policies.

Finally, we believe “minds are not for sale”, which the corporate class is purposely intending to label this as a left vs. right situation to distract the pursuing of the truth and real issues of our society and the quest for knowledge. This is no war against the left and right, it’s all about the top and the bottom. The richest 5% of America own 95% of the wealth, and the richest 1% of the world have virtually half the world’s wealth, which more and more is becoming privatized each moment. This 1984 theory is rapidly becoming alive, and this Orwelliology must be dissolved before we are all treated like commodities produced and manufactured on sterile assembly lines.

Please, it would mean the world to me and my colleagues if you pray that our referendum is passed and support us for a future of hope and grace. The only naivety is procrastination, for procrastination arrests the development of what hope and faith can accomplish. I put this mentality in mind each time I passionately speak my mind, from urging everyone to sign a petition to the Prime Minister of Canada to prevent the building of their own missile defense system, all the way up to Bush’s stubborn and ignorant policies, and I do not intend to ever let it go. Bush may continue to go on portraying himself as a man without fault, stubbornly hide away his mea culpas, who needs his questions printed out ahead of time in his very few public appearances so he can plot a lie or quick way out of the truth, who can’t stand on his own feet and confidently speak out his own heart and mind on the spot, and continue to window dress, but slowly more and more are beginning to discover the truth, that the American people will know he has no plan to win the war on terror, and more will isolate him, understanding the real stakes. I believe I’m speaking for many here. Only 44% now approve of his worldwide diplomacy, only 49% approve of the war on Iraq, down sharply from 61% a few months ago. A majority of college students like myself continue to substantially grow more dissatisfied with Bush. His job approval rating has tanked from 61 to 47 percent in just six months. This proves that Bush has produced nothing but lingering doubts in the full spectrum of our nation, and in my mind anyone who polarizes a nation or creates widespread doubt doesn’t deserve to be re-elected, besides my lasting philosophy I’ll never re-elect a warmonger. So I intend to help re-beat Bush come November, in hope we can return to a nation seeking the American dream, the promise of hope and freedom from mental slavery. I may be young and ideologically-minded and may not have experience in politics beyond student politics, but I do know what I believe in and believe every politician should believe in something for the greater good, and believe the ideals I hold faithfully to are of a value to many.

I also voted in favor this week for other great organizations, including Hip Hop Congress, an organization aiming to spread knowledge through music and increased community activity and awareness, with open mic sessions and poetry slams and local talent searches always being hosted, Stop Hate on Campus, a student-owned and operated organization creating fun opportunities free of racism, sexism, classism, homophobia, Tran phobia and other biases and hatreds, Club Tango, bringing multiple forms of dancing to campus life, and many environmental organizations.

Hey, what’s with Bob Dylan appearing on those Victoria’s Secret commerical ads? Heck, I’ve always thought of him as a sexy man, perhaps still the sexiest man in rock and roll, but, whooooo! LOL! I figured Sting would be the most likely middle-aged sex symbol to appear in those commercials! LOL! Bob does look good in those ads though. I love quite a pleasant surprise. Wonder if Laetitia Casta will make a cameo in one of his future videos!

Friday marked a dark day for our organization “180 Degree Shift in the Eleventh Hour“. In our university election via ivote, we lost by a mere170 votes. That may sound like plenty, but on a huge campus like the University of Colorado, it is not a lot at all. Over 2,500 supported our referendum, but sadly a larger 2,700 put it down. Though it saddens me to see this golden opportunity dim down, I graciously thank the 2,500 who rooted for us, you all rock! Furthermore you give us hope that, even if not under this very name, such an organization can win over in the very near future in the next generation. By then I’ll be focusing my services in Portland, but across the continental divide I will be cheering you all on.

It also was a gloomy day for Club Tango, another club I fervently supported, as I believe dance is a grand art of life and to promote it on the university campus and let it blend into our lives in flying colors would lead us all to a more vibrant and spirited life. However, the majority disagreed, losing by over 1,500 votes. Hip Hop Congress also lost! So it truly was a triple crown of thorns today!

It wasn’t all bad news though. Our environmental programs won with flying colors, as did Stop Hate On Campus. And thank God the latter passed!

So now that my time at 180/11 has come to a closure, you’re probably asking, “What is next for the Mistletoe Angel?”. Though I am disappointed by the election results, I am not discouraged, and believe a simple loss cannot stop me from changing the world. Of course I will continue to staunchly stand beside Kerry and the Democrats to get some fresh faces into the White House come November, and when I move to Portland in a month and a half, I will also haul along my ideologies as well and put them into practice for the children of tomorrow, for there are many I know who do wish for a U-turn back to the age of innocence. But more importantly, I still hold firm to my belief that I hate politics more than anything in the world, and only participate in them because it is my social responsibility to represent what is right in my conscience, and so I will not let them dominate my life and will let music and the arts do that. I want to form a band in Portland and write uplifting music to the world, with a rock and roll approach but blended with other worldly sounds. In case I never become a commerical breakthrough, I will simply continue to write music for the fun of it and work for child education.

Now that I have got out of the way, being a current Colorado resident who lives a mere half an hour from Littleton, I have to express my deepest sentiments of the Columbine tragedy. Today marks the fifth anniversary of this tragedy, the worst display of school violence in the history of our nation, and with this reminder comes two emotions; the tears and compassion I share with all the victims and their families, and secondly a political point.

I remember clearly the very day the tragedy happened: April 20, 1999. I was in my sophomore year at Denver Academy, in Mr. Ernewein’s homeroom. Because in my classroom Mr. Renewing (my hero) assigns us jobs of the week, which rotate each week, including being the Microwave Guru, cleaning the floors, reading the homework assignments, and selecting the Music of the Week, my job was watering his beautiful plants. Back before Clear Channel got its claws on KBCO-FM, we’d always listen to the great diverse adult alternative music on the station during the school day. Shortly we were to prepare for Literature and suddenly, I heard a late breaking news update on the station and, with the volume fairly down, I asked Mr. E to turn it up. Right when he did, the first audible word we heard was “massacre”. We kept listening and was shocked to hear it was happening at…Columbine High School. Immediately the question buzzing like a rusty neon sign on loose hinges was, “Who would even possess the thought of inflicting arm on all those innocent children?”. I began to cry, and Mr. E gave me a hug sharing my sentiments. I felt weak and believed I couldn’t concentrate on my studies. I surely wasn’t the only one who felt speechless. One classmate had every reason to feel that way, Kacey Revis, whose dearest friend was a student enrolled there. Eventually we found out he had been shot in the ankle about a week or so after the tragedy. As far as I remember, school actually wasn’t cancelled the rest of that day, but we did abstain from our routine schedule and had a compassionate values class and threw some Frisbee around on the lawn outside to try to lift the burdens. I must have went to the water fountain a dozen times that day because my throat felt tight and parched.

I would be lying if I said I understood exactly how all the students at Columbine felt that day. Though I had been abused as a little boy throughout elementary school, that is NOTHING compared to having to crawl around under cafeteria tables and around the library and make the run for the front door in the risk of being shot to death. The whole school itself was quite close to blowing up, and thank God the S.W.A.T team found the pipe bombs in time. The fact is, I can’t even begin to fathom the rapid heartbeat each student endured that day. However, any single display of compassion I believe is enough to console even the heart beating out of control, or the heart frozen cold and numb. God Bless Columbine, their students, their faculty, the parents of their wonderful students, and all those who hand-crafted those blue and white ribbons in their love and honor.

Which brings me to my ultimate point, regarding yesterday’s news of Cheney working to re-legalize guns of all varieties again in light of the Second Amendment and encouraging all NRA members to vote for Bush. Quite frankly, I’ve always found the Second Amendment to be the most poorly written amendment in the constitution, simply because “the right to bear arms” is an over generalized statement. I do believe in the right to defend ones self and family, but I’ve never found guns to be the answer. Perhaps I am a bit of a hypocrite to the Second Amendment, but, then again, the main argument I always hear about the Second Amendment is, “I believe we have the right to bear arms, but only by ‘common sense’”. And that is EXACTLY what’s wrong with this amendment. “Common sense” is an abstract concept, that is, everyone has their own idea of what “common sense” is, so it is a rhetorical term. And currently the motif that is being expressed by NRA followers is “God, guns and freedom”. That, in my opinion, is just sick and sad to hear. School violence has increased to its greatest index yet, we’ve had those recent sniper attacks that killed random people in the Washington D.C metro area, where is the “freedom”? In my view, where there are guns, no one is safe. The victim, obviously, but also the holder of the gun, who is subject to all the anger and despair and bewilderment and eloquence nerved at the cartridge, which can radically affect ones self. You have little children who unpredictably wander about and are curious of all kinds of things, which is not uncommon they get their little hands on a weapon. Moreover, many don’t even purchase a gun to protect their families, they buy one for recreational purposes like hunting and shooting targets. I can’t even begin to understand how so many in the NRA are so adamant over guns, could you even begin to imagine a society equivalent to some Grand Theft Auto videogame where you can own napalm throwers and grenade launchers and at any moment one can have one in broad daylight? It was bad enough that we had 9/11 with the regulation in effect, but can you imagine an attack WITH the ban lifted? To me, it seems hypocritical that Bush and his administration claims to be deeply concerned with terrorism and would stop at nothing to get to the entire root canal of it, yet they are working to get weapons more prominent in our society than ever before. There are plenty of other ways to protect yourself, you know. Karate, pepper spray, you make the choice.

It seems just like 9/11, a limited number of people learned nothing from the Columbine tragedy. A gun is a weapon of war, and we don’t want to suddenly have sporadic wars on our streets with AK-47’s and Uzis. Therefore I a proud to be part of a current 19-page blacklist of NRA enemies, which includes Oprah Winfrey, Bruce Springsteen, Maya Angelou, Drew Barrymore, and my aunt Sheryl Crow! No one is safe when guns are around.

Perhaps I am a rebel to the Second Amendment, which states only that “A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.” Then again, what is specified by “bearing”? Bearing, too, can mean several different things, according to the American Heritage Dictionary. It can mean holding up or supporting, it can mean moving around or carrying them while supporting, it can mean to be tolerant of supporting. The NRA is just blowing the right to “bear” way out of proportion, and the abstract feel of the Second Amendment is exactly what makes it the most poorly written portion of our Bill of Rights.

So, please, I beg you, let us pray that the Columbine tragedy doesn’t repeat itself, and for a start we must stop the acceleration of weapon purchasing in each environment. We have our militia for a reason, it doesn’t mean that all of us should have to be militia too. We are heroes and defenders simply by being mothers and fathers, and it is the love of our children that protects them, not a cantankerous collection of steel, potassium nitrate, charcoal and sulfur. So cradle your child today, sing her or him a sweet song, and for those of you who aren’t parents yet like me, give your brother or sister or best friend a hug and have fun in the sun.

As for all the blessed students and teachers at Columbine, rest assured that He is always guiding you with His light, and will always amend the broken wings of His sparrows. Once again, I offer my angel hug to everyone there, as well as my annual blue and white ribbon!

So Cassie Bernall, Steve Curnow, Corey DePooter, Kelly Fleming, Matthews Ketcher, Daniel Mauser, Daniel Rohrbough, Rachel Scott, John Tomlin, Isaiah Shoels, Lauren Townsend, Kyle Velasquez, and Dave Sanders, a teacher who used every ounce of love and courage in his body to protect the children, God Bless You All, and let us confront our fears in the future with open hands and not guns. For the children of tomorrow!

“Think what a better world it would be if we all, the whole world, had cookies and milk about three o'clock every afternoon and then lay down on our blankets for a nap. ~Barbara Jordan”

Well, you certainly have been a busy little angel! No moss is going to collect beneath your magnificent wings! I loved reading about the personal stories of the speakers at the conference. It was so informative and I enjoyed the peeks into their worlds.

It was great that you were able to meet up with your old friends and catch up on each other's news.

Thanks for the Bible lesson and the interesting facts on Lenten and Easter. You certainly are a fount of information! You're a walking (and singing!) encyclopedia! I don't know how you manage to retain so much in your impressive gray matter! lol

You are onc incredibly interesting (and interested!) young man! Keep on learning, and doing and growing ~ and sharing!

Your journal is an absolute gift to your readers! Thank you!

Your friend,Linda

Mistletoe Angel
Member Empyrean
since 12-17-2000
Posts 34110
City of Roses

Holy Saskatoon! Seven and a half months sure fly by when you’re having fun! Me and my mind have wandered a many miles since where we last left off, and my intuition has coruscated faster than all the traffic lights in the country. I’ve been like MacGyver in birkenstocks and Aspasia combed through my hair, where I make the most of each moment and embrace the day like the social butterfly I am, reciting on and on under my second nature of, “The butterfly counts not months but moments, and has time enough.", a.k.a the Rabindranath Effect. Then, whenever there’s a moment of stale stillness, I like to break the silence like Columbo and say, “One more thing…” like the intuitive musician I am, believing that it’s all about tension and repose in the way you live and play and when a rhythm is messy, you just have to sub-divide in your head and let your heartstrings do the humming in-between claps and whistles. It’s like in that episode “Bushmaster” when MacGyver said, “Egg whites are good for a lot of things; lemon merangue pie, angel food cake, and clogging up radiators." Sometimes we rush through life and much too much etiquette into certain things, but I’m just simply the free-spirited type. Making the best out of what you’ve got and seeing how far you can go with it. Not doing the latter would be like taking the cake from the oven before it’s finished rising and then there’s no time for the seasonings to fluff up through the yeast or getting to frosten it up. That’s the MacGyver instinct. Either that or I’m getting old already! Those of you who may be thinking, “What the, what’s someone like Mistletoe Angel doing chirpin’ about MacGyver? LOL!

I have been writing in my journal ever since I moved here to Portland, Oregon in June (I’ve got a whole archive of entries I still desire to type up and add here) but this would have to be the first public posting I’ve added here since moving. I’m already loving everything about the City of Roses. The neighbors here are far more friendlier than those I had in the suburbs of Arvada. Heck, our neighbors next door of 2581 NE 31st Avenue, John and his daughter Annabella, greeted my family with smoked salmon and chanterelle mushrooms. Wow, I mean, what are the odds a neighbor will offer you chantarelle mushrooms? Chantanelles are world-class mushrooms which have earned acclaim from the Italians, who call them Girolle, and the Germans, who call them Pfifferling, both acclaimed names for their superb flavor. Even Chinese folk remedies have for centuries attributed curative powers to the Chanterelle, using them particularly for vision and respiratory problems. It’s so special that no one has been able to cultivate this mushroom yet, and has only been known to grow in the wild womb of Mother Nature. All I can say is, “Wow, I’ve got a lot of thinking to do in seeing how I can repay them for this too-generous of a gift!” I tossed and grilled them up into some stir-fries the five days after receiving them, by God they’d make a satisfying side dish alone! Guess it's time for me to prep up the saffron farm and run apaella factory if I expect to ever return the favor in time!

It’s far more easier to get around here in Portland as well. Back in the Denver metropolitan area, it is difficult to get anywhere without a car, especially during the hectic T-REX transportation construction project. There has been a great urban sprawl from Fort Collins to Colorado Springs, yet there hasn’t even been a proposed final resolution for a light rail project from Denver to Boulder along the busy U.S 36 freeway stretch. Here in Portland, you can get anywhere easily simply by walking. I’ve probably already walked more here in Portland these first five months living here than I had in Colorado throughout my first two-and-a-half years in college. I’ve actually lost weight since moving here, weighing 157 when moving and now weigh 148. I did my share of walking in Boulder as well, though my real purpose was going to school there and then coming home on the B-line bus so I never really got to feel the greatest pleasure and freedom in it. I swear on Mondays alone I must walk over 10,000 steps. I’d walk down 31st street to Broadway, take Broadway on down to the Lloyd Center, hop on the Tri-Met Max light rail, get off at Pioneer Courthouse Square, and walk south six blocks down to Portland State. Or on Saturdays I just love to walk along a length of the Willamette waterfront from the Saturday market. This sort of trip involves about three thousand steps, and it isn’t even exhausting. I enjoy walking so much now I even stepped right into that DMV and replaced my driver’s license with a student ID card. Besides refusing to drive in protest to all the major oil companies like Halliburton and Shell which are profiteering sadly off this war in Iraq, I find walking is just so very sexy. So sexy and free-spirited. Then comes that “Go anywhere, do anything” ritornelle again. It was Hal Bortland who said, “All walking is discovery. On foot we take the time to see things whole.” It truly is a great art to saunter. I’ve never felt so sexy and healthy before. Now, all I need is some dream girl to walk beside me. (sigh)

Portland is the best life has gotten for me in all my memory. Of course, every place has its catch, though I find Portland’s flaws far less troubling than many other places I’ve been. First of all, if you’re going to live in Portland, you have to get used to brushing your teeth seriously. Portland is one of the unique areas of the country where the water doesn’t include flouride, a necessary agent to preventing cavities and protecting tooth enamel. I guess Portland likes to see to it they can be as all-natural as they can be, LOL! So, you may want to give your chompers a twiceover here just in case!

Then, Oregon also does happen to have one of the highest unemployment rates of any state in the U.S at 6.6%. So, you can expect to have difficulty to find a place to work when you first move here, and it would benefit greatly to get some retail experience behind you so you can take advantage of the economic climate here.

Yep, life is good. In Colorado, I was moving around the playground of life and getting to see how everything works and letting my imagination run wild and figure out how to find my wings. Oregon is like the swings of my journey, learning to swing as high as I can, headspring from the tips of my heels and use my wings to take flight to my dreams. I want to fly free now and see that there’s far more than just the stars themselves in this glorious universe. I’m kind of like Columbo at that time when receiving an invitation to become part of an air crash investigating team, having been told they are all pilots and they would train him, and he said, “Oh, no thanks. My ears pop in an elevator. In fact, I don't like even being this tall." Faith is my elevator, faith is my co-pilot, and I feel personally the sky could never be the limit. Some days I just want to feel shorter, other days I just like to think taller, that’s what it is with me. The beaten path, the consuetude, the daily grind just doesn’t arouse me. I’ll decide the days I like to make myself appear taller so I can touch the stars or boldly have my spirit leap tall buildings in a single bound. Other times I just feel sexy making myself appear small, aroused by how I am just an iota in the thaumaturgic tapestry of life, yet I am capable of so much, I can create so much, and influence the way some things are.

Ever since I became the butterfly, breaking out of the cocoon of my misanthropic past, my motto has been each morning, "Put your feet on the ground, then lift yourself up!" Even for those who are shorter, like myself, in height. I think of what Nelson Mandela said, "Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn't serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people will not feel insecure around you. We were born to manifest the glory of God that is within us. It isn't just some of us. It is everyone, and as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give others permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others." Then, I take this glory of God I manifest and let it lift me up to embrace what MacGyver thought of as "another day, a whole new set of possibilities." and float around the neighborhood like Jacques Cousteau. I may be in a whole different region of this great nation, with all kinds of new neighbors and new situations, but the world is my playground and I just find myself in a different part of the playground, that's all. It’s a beautiful feeling, and it’s sexy. And that, my friend, is the Rabindranath Effect.

Each day, I am only convinced more and more based on my experiences in community-building and social outreach that children truly are the future, and that we must embrace and devote ourselves to the whole of the child not just through school, but from the neighborhood, the community, the household as well.

Unfortunately, when I grew up much of my early life in Arvada, Colorado, I didn’t get much guidance attending Warder H. Elementary school. They lacked a conflict mediation program, so I wasn’t able to sort out my differences with the boys in school who found me too different or oversensitive. They didn’t have a diversity of methods in their educational approach, and often I found myself in Ms. Miller’s office, the special student counselor, and went through a recurring plethora of reading, sequential and motor skills tests.

But worst of all, they didn’t have an established code of ethics. They had no mission statement, which I’ve found to be the sine qua non of the quality of each and every school and the educational leadership it guarantees and provides each child. I later learned that Warder H. Elementary school didn’t even a national PTA membership until 1998, two years after I graduated and was homeschooled through middle school. Isn’t it troubling to imagine any school, without promoting the full welfare of children, without securing adequate laws for the care and protection of our youth, without developing needed involvement from the general public to ensure a child’s full education which is socially, mentally and physically sound?

After all, we often hear the proverb, "It takes a whole village to raise a child". So, where is the leadership? Where is the community? What must be done, or, what is example, to bringing the village together again for the sake of our children?

I've just been wrapping up my first semester at Portland State University, and being new to the community, having not lived here for a year yet and obtaining resident status, I've only been able to run a part-time schedule. One of my two classes is a sophomore inquiry called "Leadership for Change" a course designed to improve our leadership skills.

Reading the list of community partners for this course, in providing possible organizations we could volunteer to fulfill our volunteer hours, I read about Buckman Elementary SUN school, a local elementary school famous for being an arts magnet school, thus allowing anyone in the community to volunteer. Visiting the school on the first week of October, I learned the school was governed by three fundamental philosophies; the need to "living as a community of learners", the lifetime commitment in helping students "connect with and influence their environment", and that "diversity is to be respected and celebrated"

Initially, looking over the number of after-school classes they offered, including those with names like "Hogwarts Revisited" and "Broadway Revue: Rock to Bach", I liked what I saw and decided to devote my time in serving the children at Buckman Elementary.

The first observation I decided to make the first day was to see their ethics in action. Being a SUN school, I was curious to know exactly what that meant, and so I decided to research the profile behind the three initials.

According to their official web-site, SUN stands for "Schools Uniting Neighborhoods" and is a collaborative effort that has endured since 1998, when the City of Portland and Multnomah County agreed to partner up to support school success and education by forming a "school-based delivery model". In result, a committee of representatives from the county, city, state, school districts and local community organizations was formed, which met for seven months to design this ideal delivery model. The labor of love formed in the process was an expanded community school proposal that "added educational activities and social services, and increased the involvement of families, community members and local businesses."

In 1999, the name "SUN Schools" was chosen by the Multnomah County Youth Advisory Board and in the few months following, eight schools were chosen to become SUN schools, in which were decided based on four characteristics; "a successful history of integrating services and intergovernmental collaboration", "a successful history of community partnerships", "had a three to five year plan which integrates the broad parameters of this concept on a local level", and that the school had challenging neighborhood conditions, such as "underserving by social support services", high numbers of students from different backgrounds, or challenged by unemployment or poverty. Buckman is one of these original eight schools chosen.

I agreed to begin working that following Tuesday. I believed the first observation I should make was to see how these ethics are put in action. The cornerstone ethic of SUN schools I learned was that learning "involves personal discovery, action, observation and reflection" and that their creative, hands-on active education program "is a process of respecting one’s self, the arts, and our connections to others and the natural world." I agreed to myself I would serve as a volunteer in a number of these after-school classes and volunteer and instruct the children under these guiding principles of personal discovery, action, observation and reflection, in my optimistic hope to uphold these virtues for the sake of these children, to see to it they didn’t have a difficult time in elementary school like I had, one with a lack of guidance and leadership.

October 14th was the first day I volunteered. It was a Thursday, and I asked Joshua Green, the SUN program supervisor, if there was a specific class that needed volunteers. He said that the Beginners Chess class could use some help in Room 108. I agreed to head on in and help out, for I knew enough about chess to teach and have always found it to be a game great at improving decision-making, critical thinking and motor skill abilities.

I was told basically to help keep the kids motivated and to stay focused in their games. Occasionally, there was a student who would get exhausted or burnt out playing or thinking for so long, so you would expect children to often get up out of their chairs and trance around the room. All in all, I was impressed by how engaged all the children were in their games and as I saw the victorious smile or epiphany of thought on each occasional face, I found it to be a golden opportunity to witness a personal discovery, so I ask the child, "How do you feel?" or "Why did you make that move?" One answer I still remember from this second grade boy, in setting up a checkmate three moves later, is, "I feel patterns, I felt this one!"

That answer impressed me, and that had me thinking for about ten minutes after class. I asked the pony-tailed goombah Beginners Chess instructer if he takes on this same sort of personal discovery exercise and what his thought was on that second grade boy’s answer. He said, "It definitely means a lot, it shows they treat chess more than just a game!"

In the first week of class, I recall reading Komives’ "An Introduction to Leadership", where she and several other scholars decide to define leadership as "a relational process of people together attempting to accomplish change or make a difference to benefit the common good." With the times ever changing, it’s no wonder how much more difficult it is than ever to relate or uphold responsibility for so much. Komives adds to this insight by quoting from P.J Palmer’s publication "The active life: A spirituality of work, creativity, and caring" that often we envision ourselves in a "spiritual renaissance" and are often involved in "a renewed search for contemplative values in the flurry of our active lives."

Already, I had begun to feel and appreciate what makes Buckman Elementary a special school that stands out among many others, and already believed the school truly fostered the respect of diversity and committed to embracing the full potential of each child, but I knew another important step was to identify just what makes the leadership efforts here exemplary, efforts which so many other swchools would envy to adopt.

Peter Vaill, a professor from the University of St. Thomas, likes to think of these times as "swirling rapids of permanent white water" and that simply working harder is not the way to fight the tides, but rather working smarter. Working smarter collectively, knowing that "collaborative practices build more community and commitment than isolated, individual actions do.", reflectively smarter in taking the time to make sense out of what is happening "in order to gain perspective and understanding" and "keep a sense of common purpose" and spiritually smarter in being aware of our values that help shape our character. In this co-op personal leadership approach, Vaill claims we can gain new insight and understand and recognize paradigms and the progress we’ve made.

Thinking this lesson over had me reflecting on my days as a boy in Warder Elementary, where I felt, perhaps, the problem with my old school was it was one of those isolated, individual communities Vaill was talking about. There was no collective or spiritual structure, and reflecting back on the experience I thought of Warder as having a "play it as we go" approach rather than a sense of collective reflective insight. I took that particular thought to heart and decided to let it relate to my next volunteering experiences, where "reflection" would come to play and I would also take the time to observe several other classrooms and see how they operated.

On October 26th, I volunteered to help out with Storytime Players, a class where you not only read stories to the children, you also have them act out the stories. We were reading, "A Bad Case of Stripes" by David Shannon, a book about a young girl named Camilla who tries to be like everyone else and, though she loved eating lima beans, refuses to eat them so she could be liked by everyone else. Then she finds herself waking up one morning with stripes all over, and goes through endless predicaments until she decides to eat lima beans and then is brought back to normal.

After finishing reading the book, I asked the children, "Why did eating lima beans take away Camilla’s stripes?" One third-grade girl in a red Pooh shirt said, "Because she found out it’s important to be yourself!" Then I asked, "Have you ever seen a striped person?" and after a unanimous sonance of "No!", another girl answered, "But it doesn’t mean other things don’t have stripes...zebras and tigers have them!"

Again, the answers these two girls made were exactly the answers I was hoping to hear. Like Camilla in her story, this very week I was learning about understanding yourself as an individual in leadership. We often get so indulged into something, we also tend to forget about thinking of the things that shape our personal identities and motivate us each step of the way. Self-awareness is one key motivator in building character, something which Camilla developed late in the story. Komives mentions that "high self-esteem is a result of valuing your self-concept." Bette Midler, one woman I have an immense respect and admiration for, is also quoted for saying, "I didn’t belong as a kid, and that always bothered me. If only I’d known that one day my differentness would be an asset, then my early life would have been much easier." It is people like Miss Midler who have influenced me to stay strong. I mean, when you are working on a pineapple farm in much of your young life and surrounded by those who doubt you can make it big time despite having your own self-determination and summoning of will, and the next day you become "The Rose", that's just inspiring. I still cry everytime I see the end of this classic movie, with her hardcore hippy attitude yet downhome charm, and she just had too much to drink and crawls to her hometown concert she's performing at, and then sings her heart out before passing away on stage. One of my favorite single performances ever.

I saw Midler in their eyes. The two girls spoke in a tone filled with self-confidence; they knew that you may never be able to change some things about yourself, but you can always rely on your strengths and influences to build self-esteem and to learn more and more. It was then I decided, "How about we act out this story now!". I told a girl acting out Camilla to, as she played her role, act out her lack of self-confidence before and her gaining of it in the end. And through one cut, the girl did just that!

It was this experience that I felt set example to their ethic of "focusing on the whole child". Here, I saw a clear example not only of personal discovery, but of all four essentials. In action I saw the girl perform the role of Camilla, in finding her self-esteem. I observed the two girls in their thoughtful answers and the one performing as Camilla and their contributions to the class. And, finally, I saw these examples reflecting the core of the values system adopted at Buckman.

Two weeks later, on November 9th, after suggesting to the teacher of Storytime Players to choose a story that also incorporates the moral of understanding others, she decided on "Giraffes Can’t Dance" by Giles Andreae, a book about a giraffe who wants to dance, but with crooked knees, jellylike neck and long wobbly legs, is the laughing stock at the annual Jungle Dance, until a cricket tells him that those who are different "just need a different song" and then finds his voice to the music of the moon, where his soulful dancing wins over the whole animal kingdom and teaches young readers that everyone can be wonderful, and we will in embracing the voice within.

I was reminded earlier in the year when learning of the social learning approach, which J. Thomas Wren explains under moral development. After you govern yourself and find your integrity or find your voice, it takes observation to be able to relate or interpret other everyday life situations. Albert Bandura, a modern social psychologist, believes that "the fundamental approach of social learning theorists is based on the recognition that behavior is in large measure determined by situational factors outside the individual" and that the individual plays a major role in analyzing the situation through psychological response.

In other words, it’s basically the notion of "It takes a whole village to raise a child" all over again, in that we all must "attend to actions of others" and witness the situations, remember what happened and also what happened to who was being observed, choose to imitate or not according to our moral conscience, and treat each evaluation as a learning experience.

Ultimately, through understanding yourself and observing others, then interacting among others, you grow to acknowledge the importance of community, which I once again indeed felt since the first day walking down those colorful halls. Komives likes to think of building community as "creating a feel of ‘we’ out of lots of ‘I’s’" William B. Gudykunst, a professor of speech communication at California State University, believes there are seven community building principles; be committed, be mindful, be unconditionally accepting, be concerned for yourself and others, be understanding, be ethical, and finally, be peaceful. Following this mental model, Gudykunst claims individuals "will listen more keenly, seek resolution of differences, respect each other even when there are disagreements on specific issues, and be generous and patient."

In the weeks following November 9th, I looked at the big picture, and saw for myself what I saw in Beginners Chess and Storytime Players, from helping bake Greek sugar cookies in International Cooking to teaching kids about Van Gogh in Artventures. Teachers committed to the futures of the children, teachers and community volunteers unconditionally accepting to the questions and concerns of parents in-between periods and after school, and, all in all, one strong understanding, appreciative, peaceful environment. I felt I was taken in and accepted as part of the community, and have felt a proud sense of satisfaction, witnessing relations between children and teachers and the community blossom, first by understanding my role, then understanding the roles of others, and finally identifying our roles together in this community.

William Butler Yeats once said, "Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire." In my experience I’ve found not only have I helped see the fire light in each child’s heart, but in my own, for I have been blessed to know a school which brings out the best in us all and influence the whole community at large, and I will be forever grateful for serving Buckman Elementary these past seven weeks.

My final thought for now is this: Do it for them. If you've been busy with work and haven't gotten to watch over your kids as much as you usually like, give them a hug when you get home or before you go to bed. Ask them how their day was in an inviting, comforting tone. It is essential especially under a difficult current social climate like this, where ever so often our kids can come home with the bleeding questions like, "Mommy, is what I heard on the news true?" or "Dad, why are you sad?".

I'm upset just as millions of other Americans are about this election season, and believe in many aspects things will only get worse before they get better. So I say to the many who voted for Kerry but felt all along Bush would win and held the pessimistic view with them throughout the election season, "You may be right, but just try and have a good feeling nevertheless. After all, doesn't it feel great to have a good feeling in you, rather than let your troubles pin you down like a ball and chain?"

I think it's incredibly sexy to have a positive outlook in life and summon the will to smile through each storm. I don't think it's disingenuous to smile when there are so many problems in the world. Rather I think of it as sexy, as therapeutic, and healthy. I'm just going to get up each morning as always, put my bare feet on the ground, leap out of bed like Tatiana Grigorieva (my lil' Aussie appreciation tidbit of the day! ) and let my hair swim and my hips shake down the street, wearing my signature smile. I'm going to do it, and smile, for the children, and for myself.

And I don't deny that there is much work to be done, and I'm committed to my activism work as always, from stopping this war to saving our environment to funding our public schools. I believe the money our schools receive is mismanaged, titles keep changing, there’s a high turnover rate in leadership, reorganization is constant and inconsistent, there's this voracious tendency to jump on new trends that are costly and imperfected, and faculty positions continue to rotate, all unhealthy elements for the public school system and...for our children.

As I've professed before, I am a staunch opponent to the No Child Left Behind Act because it's a siege on the public education system, rooted on empty promises, false dichotomies, helter-skelter, punishment to underperforming schools, and the allowing of privatization to as much as a child’s future. I mean, how could you possibly consider NCLB a focus on the whole child and integrating the full range of humanities, arts and sciences and social diversity to them when the NCLB act has not been tested and promotes more transience than ever before, and focuses on a strict curriculum of reading and math test scores. Those who succeed the first time in these tests are privileged in learning various other subjects, while those struggling with these tests are stuck with a basic "Reading First" program. In result of this, you always see what some activists like to think of as a "packaging over content" approach to the children.

I am against all that. The children deserve more, and understanding these politics only opens up the soft spot in my heart for them ever more in the need to have them dance like the giraffes in their beloved book.

More than just the children are being hurt by NCLB too. The NCLB puts an immense amount of pressure and distrust on public schools, expecting each school to reach a threshold of performance or will face consequences or sanctions by the government. No Child Left Behind is moretestimonial than it is scientific and schools are being eyed like a hawk under a "Hawthorne effect", also known as the theory there's a tendency to work harder and better when under pressure. But through a strict studying as this, many academic studies have found relations among faculties have suffered or been squandered in the process.

You always hear that a relationship is based on trust and communication, and building such relations in the school environment is the necessary step to beginning to resolve these conflicts. Activists and teachers alike must act and communicate accordingly and respectfully. Norms must be eastablished to stop the reckless constant reorganization process, so teachers and education advocates can save their breathes and make their voices heard for the good of the community. A code of ethics must be agreed upon and adopted in a diplomatic process through schools and organizations alike, mission statements which acknowledge the fundamental need to "teach the whole child" and teach as a community of learners. Finally, the money must be managed responsibly and the general public must be convinced that these schools need the money, not the lip service.

Angela Schwindt said, "While we try to teach our children all about life, our children teach us what life is all about." If we deny each child the education he or she deserves, we are denying ourselves the gifts and blessings the children can give to the world. In returning our trust to the child, to the teacher, to the citizen, we’ll restore a sound leadership which will lead to fiscal responsibility, stronger relations and motivation among educational groups nation-wide, and in return, we return the great essence of the community and, most importantly, the essence of life.

And THAT is exactly why I am obsessed with talking about children all the time. We not only reward them, we are rewarding ourselves in enriching their lives. I believe so much needs to be done, and NOW, but I am optimistic each day, because I have felt my heart open to many children at Buckman and in Colorado and believe in our children and that the ethics of SUN schools can echo throughout the heartland of this great nation.

You keep singing, Noah...it is young people such as yourself who will keep this world going in the right direction.

When we learn to live with defeat, and put as positive a face on it as we possibly can...and not dwell in a negative past...only then will we change history!

But that too brings up an interesting concept...

What if we are on nothing more than a plain old-fashioned record player... and God or some other higher power is playing the record at his/her discretion...then golden oldies are going to be played in a new time...and we will hear the same as our ancestors did before us...

[ah, a fantasy only with some records...]

I take this insight from the insight I had from an older adopted sister...who talked one day to me when I was about your age, Noah...when she was in biology and in looking through the microscope...thought about we humans might possibly be seen by God under a microscope, like we saw ants...

her impression has always stayed in the back of my mind...

You, Noah...are making a HUGE impression, and I wish you much success in your life, your music, and your ambitions!

Mistletoe Angel
Member Empyrean
since 12-17-2000
Posts 34110
City of Roses

(giggles) Awwwwwww, thanks Karilea! That is quite an impression, isn't it. Tell her too that objects are often closer than they appear. We are all indeed grains of salt under God's looking glass, but it is such a fascinating, sexy, empowering feeling when you may be small but when God looks down on each of us, how distinguished and colorful we all can be.

What can I say? I just do what I do. Sometimes what I do may not be right, but I believe in the long run when you look back, it makes more sense why you do something and it just proves once and for all we are all walking contradictions, all cocktails that make up all the essences and opposites that attract in life.

All this talking has made me thirsty, by the way. How about a yerba mate?

Behind each day, there’s a whole story once told begging for attention. I think it’s amazing how we’ve come so far yet we never take the time to acknowledge all the wonderful milestones and crowning strokes on each very day before as we are self-indulged each day in our lil’ cynosure of five-minute showers and Dannon Frusions. Sometimes we are often tempted to say that’s the story of our life. Or maybe we have just watched too much of Doug Heffernan on “The King of Queens”.

I am convinced more than ever each day “Everything is interconnected”. Did you know it was on this day in 1867 that the National Grange of Husbandry was founded? Yeppers, it is thanks to this posse that agriculture and social rural life in America continues to prosper. All Sweet 16 parties at the Grange Hall; sponsered in part by the Grange! That very steak that’s currently freeze-dried in your Frigidaire is part of the story of your life, we just don’t think of it happen.

You remember Little Freddy, right? Freddy ‘Boom Boom’ Cannon, a.k.a Freddy Cannon, a.k.a Freddy Karmon, a.k.a Frederick Anthony Picariello? Well, he arrived on the scene this day in 1940, who would grow up to become our Rock N. Roll Baby. Courtesy of Boom Boom, he gave us such cannonades as “Transistor Sister”, “Tallahassee Lassie” and “Way Down Yonder in New Orleans”. Hey, I’ve been meaning to ask for some time now, is Palisades Park real? I think in one of my dreams I must have been there, and I was with my dream girl and this, for some odd inexplicable reason, became a 45 of our lives.

”Last night I took a walk after darkA swingin' place called Palisades ParkTo have some fun and see what I could seeThat's where the girls are

I took a ride on a shoot-the-chuteThat girl I sat beside was awful cuteAnd after while she was holdin' hands with me

My heart was flyin' up like a rocket shipDown like a roller coasterBack like a loop-the-loopAnd around like a merry-go-round

We ate and ate at a hot dog standWe danced around to a rockin' bandAnd when I could, I gave that girl a hugIn the tunnel of love

You'll never know how great a kiss can feelWhen you stop at the top of a Ferris wheelWhen I fell in love down at Palisades Park.”

Hey, does Abigail Beecher still teach? I guess I’m going to have call his supervisor. I mean, honestly, have you ever know a teacher who knows her history from A to Z, drives a XKE AND dance the Watusi? Come on, you’re killing us, you loose cannon, share the wealth!

Dallas, Texas became the largest American city on this day in 1985 to pass a no-smoking law for restaurants, eh…EH? Oh. Well, who could forget the opening of “Psycho”, the one film that would define a generation in taking baths rather than showers.

Looking back, it simply has me thinking, “Hey, why don’t we take advantage of each day and put the “here” back in “hereditary”? Nah, there’s not a chance you’ll have a cherry soda with Abigail Beecher anytime soon. But I mean, can you even believe there are so many magazines and tabloids that always write this stuff out about Martha Stewart getting in trouble for making jelly for her toast out of berries from the prison patch, or “Desperate Housewives’ star Eva Longoria cheats on TV…AND IN REAL LIFE TOO!”, or “Ashlee Simpson to Perform “Live” for AOL”. In their eyes, it’s all NEWS. Better yet, you can easily find it at the check-out register in every local supermarket, while the other newspapers are tucked away in the aisle next to laundry detergent and cosmetics, so, according to Radok, it must be our #1 Most Trusted News Source. They basically use the same slogan as the Oregonian uses; “Practically Indispensible”. They know if you put a picture of George Bush in the paper, it won’t sell, but if you stamp one with Regis Philbin dressed up as Nick Lachey in there, that’s a double play loud enough to put Chuck Hearn into a force of habit and bellow out, “"You can put this one in the refrigerator. The door's closed, the light's out, the eggs are cooling, the butter's getting hard and the Jell-O is jiggling, and I haven’t even turned on the stove yet!” Or if you thought the discovery on this day of a Bronze Age shipwreck off the coast of Turkey by the National Geographic Society that revealed more of the archeaological mysteries of King Tutankhamen was fascinating, wait until you hear about that purported likeness of the Virgin Mary in a cheese sandwich discovered by that eBay jewelry designer, or the single grain of breakfast cereal with an uncanny resemblance to cuddly movie alien E.T. Sure, William Albright made some major impressive discoveries like excavating several Biblical ruins and discovering the Dead Sea Scrolls, but…look at the toast, it’s sooooooo cool!

So, with that said, if this is really where all the news comes from, why don’t we take advantage of the day and write out our own self-celebrity editions for each day and make our own history from it? That’s what everyone wants, right? We’re all our own best celebrity, so maybe if we embrace that truth, the world may be spinning a lot faster than we have more to entertain the world with, not to mention entertain ourselves.

MISTLETOPIA: It seems Mitchell Leisen may still be writing screenplays; only this time in the inner-most desires of our subconsciousness.

Noah Eaton of Portland, Oregon claims he “could have sworn” visiting Abigail Beecher” in his dreams last night, where he reportedly “danced the monkey” along with a full high school auditorium.

“I recall hearing Freddy’s song back when I was nine!” Eaton told The Daily Sparkplug for its Saturday edition. “She had that sloppy sweater, pony tail, blue sunglasses, I knew it ad to have been her!”

Asking if Ms. Beecher indeed knew her history from A to Z, Eaton responded, “When you know all the astronomers from Marc Aaronson to Fritz Zwicky, who could possibly be wrong?”

The reported dream interpreter did not immediately reply to e-mailed queries seeking comment, claiming he just wanted to "dream up a dream date" with sexy "Smallville" dreamboat Kristin Kreuk!

"There’s something about someone who is both unassuming yet attention-getting that’s very sexy!" Eaton replied. "Superman dumped her for Lois Lane, now's the time to make my seasons greetings to her."

Freddy Cannon’s "Abigail Beecher", which peaked at #16 on the Billboard chart in 1964, a song about a history teacher who enchants a local high school with her rock-and-roll attitude and surfing moves, became a cultural sensation.

Noah, you rock! I swear to God in the heavens that He sent an angel to live among we humans! ~ Me! ~ lol I jest, my friend! 'Tis YOU that I am referring to!

I am so pleased to know that you were made welcome when you moved from Colorado to Oregon! BTW I love wild mushrooms! Chanterelles are a delicacy. My Dad used to take me into the woods and meadows looking for a variety of the saphrocytic delights. I love frying them up in real butter, with some Celtic sea salt and fresh cracked black pepper and top up a couple of pieces of homemade bread nicely toasted! I'm salivating just thinking of it!

It still amazes me how quickly you settled in in your new environs! ~ and soon after were the co-leader in organizing a 10,000 strong political rally! My goodness! You truly are a go-getter! Anything that you put your mind to ~ becomes reality! ~ So continue to think big!

What you are doing for our young people will relay into a better world for all of us! They are the future generations that hopefully can save our planet! My generation sure as heck has done a pretty good job of polluting it. You are helping to raise the collective consciousness through your conscientious and philanthropic involvement with our young people.

Your journal is like a fascinating journey for all of us priviledged to read it! You are, in fact, writing a book! ~ Your autobiography!

You are a fascinating young man, Angel Boy ~ and I enjoy our friendship! Again, I say ~ YOU ROCK!

Loving hugs,Linda

Mistletoe Angel
Member Empyrean
since 12-17-2000
Posts 34110
City of Roses

(giggles) Oh Linda, no, YOU are the angel. I mean, I'm just the Mistletoe Angel, the angel of a small part of the Earth. But you're the Earth Angel, you're the angel of everything on this planet. There's no competing! (falls to knees and wails like Wayne Campbell) I'm not worthy, I'm not worthy!

(giggles) I absolutely LOVE mushrooms. Both my sisters are vegetarians too like myself and they absolutely dislike them and so does my mom, but I can't get enough of them (and no, and they're not for shhhhrooms either, LOL! ) They are perfect in stir-fries, or you can season them in garlic, butter and soy sauce, you can do just about anything to them. Chantarelles are everywhere here and you can just go out into the wilderness and find beds of them sprouting about!

Awwwwwww, yeah, I did settle in pretty quickly, didn't I? In some of my journal entries that I still haven't gotten to type up yet between April and December, I was very emotional leaving Colorado and cried pretty much the whole trip there because, after all, anyone who leaves a childhood home behind surely must feel that way, and I didn't want to think of Oregon as Act II of my life, rather my life as one big act filled with many unpredictable situations and characters. So, it was just emotional being very reflective on growing my roots and spreading my wings there, and staring into each empty room and seeing the torn swingset in our old sandbox, it is a hartwrenching vision to see.

But everyone in Portland is sooooooo friendly. Far more friendlier than those in my Arvada neighborhood. Basically everyone there lives alternative lifestyles. I wanted to move to San Francisco most of all, which is my favorite metropolitan city in the U.S and the hotbed of so many progressive visions, not to mention the home of the Flower Age, but the land value is jus too expensive down there, so Portland made a great alternative. Even so, I only live nine hours from San Francisco and three hours from Seattle, so, I could always go down to San Francisco for a four-day weekend. And, I have to tell you, co-leading that major rally and seeing all the colorful banners and children hopping around in peace capes, that had to have been some of the sixties spirit returning! I felt it!

All I can say about trying to save this planet is, pray for my generation. I am only one spirit, and I can only hope much of the rest of my generation represents similar sentiments as I do in the need to save our forests, respect diversity in education, and stop war as a foreign policy, period. We need all the hope we can get! My next entry focuses on one of these issues.

As I continue to shake my head, hearing about the continuing war in Iraq and how so many could create a monster like this once again, I tend to try and look behind at the spiritual aspect of it. After all, “moral values” was considered the top issue for 22 percent of voters, above the economy/jobs at 20%, the war on terrorism at 19%, and Iraq at 15%. Exit polls showed that nearly one-fourth of voters, 23 percent of them, called themselves evangelicals and/or born again Christians. Among those voters, 78 percent voted for Bush, 21 percent for Kerry. And according to the exit polling data, Bush led 64-35 percent among those who attend church more than one time a week, and 58-41 among those who attend church once a week.

Leering at these results, my aesthetic reaction is, “What is it with all the active church-goers voting for the war, and all the secular citizens voting against this war?” Is there something that is being looked at the wrong way or is being misinterpreted? After all, I’ve always believed the Bible is the Good Book, the Library of Divine Revelation”, consisting of the voices of every social stature from kings to peasants, all sacred words binded together for the purpose of showing the path to redemption and righteousness and understanding the Holy Law. So, I feel, though I don't like to lecture anyone about religion or what they should believe, I believe it is important to share my personal belief to some of the words of wisdom expressed in this Good Book.

Ever so often, you hear from Exodus 20:1-17 about the Ten Commandments and the most mentioned one of all, “Thou shalt not kill”. Everyone can agree there, but there seems to have always been quite a debate on the meaning of the word. Those scholars in favor of the war would say that the Hebrew meaning of the word “kill” actually means “murder” or “to slay someone in a violent manner unjustly." I recognize myself that there are indeed hateful people in the world who fuse their emotions into a negative energy and use it to spill terror, malice, vengeance and harm on the world. Even so, I find it astounding how when I ask many in favor of the war that killing 100,000 in vengeance is certainly wrong in trying to capture and dismantle a network of terrorist organizations, often you hear “No!”. Isn’t the killing of innocent children murder? Isn’t the killing of women and family members who just so happen to only be in the wrong place at the wrong time murder?

I assume the one scripture in the Good Book that is often misinterpreted has to be in Matthew 10:34, where Jesus says, “Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword." I believe with all my heart that the “sword” he speaks of IS peace. Unfortunately, perhaps many have fathomed this like Orwellian 1984 speak: “War is Peace”.

I grew up in a Catholic background, as I’ve talked about several times before in this journal, and I have read and learned many lessons of the Good Book and its teachings. In the past few years, I have turned away from the Church to some degree as I believe it has gotten too adversarially or unilaterally involved in politics and political campaigns, so I am no longer an active church-goer, but I believe I understand enough about the Bible to interpret the hypocrisy and misinterpretation the neo-con right has undertaken in using the Good Book as a weapon in justifying the need of pre-emptive war and banning abortion and assaulting the public education system. I strongly believe myself in reading enough of these verses that it was clear that the mission of Jesus, and his message, was peace, and it was to be spread and affirmed peacefully only.

In Matthew 26, line 52, it is written, "Put your sword back in its place," Jesus said to him, "for all who draw the sword will die by the sword." Some may think, “See, He believes in an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours! Saddam drawed the sword, so that means we must make him die by our sword!” I don’t believe that, and believe it is rather meant that the hatchet must be buried, and those who try and use it will be punished or made critical judgement by the Lord.

Look at Lines 51-56 in Luke 9 and in Luke 10 as well:

”Luke 9:51 As the time approached for him to be taken up to heaven, Jesus resolutely set out for Jerusalem.52 And he sent messengers on ahead, who went into a Samaritan village to get things ready for him; 53 but the people there did not welcome him, because he was heading for Jerusalem. 54 When the disciples James and John saw this, they asked, "Lord, do you want us to call fire down from heaven to destroy them?" 55 But Jesus turned and rebuked them,56 and they went to another village.

Luke 10:1 After this the Lord appointed seventy-two others and sent them two by two ahead of him to every town and place where he was about to go.2 He told them, "The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.3 Go! I am sending you out like lambs among wolves."

5 "When you enter a house, first say, `Peace to this house.' 6 If a man of peace is there, your peace will rest on him; if not, it will return to you."

10 But when you enter a town and are not welcomed, go into its streets and say,11 `Even the dust of your town that sticks to our feet we wipe off against you. Yet be sure of this: The kingdom of God is near.'

I absolutely believe that we all need a little faith in our lives, and absolutely believe without it, or rejecting God, I suppose personally to me we all see things far more blurrier. However, these verses tell me straight up that no one should use force ever to spread the message, and we can always expect those who won’t listen. So, just turn the other cheek and go on to those who do keep their ears open to the teachings.

There’s even more scriptures which wash like sinew against my heart in the belief that Jesus preached a non-violent peace, not a militaristic peace. In Matthew 10, where the “sword” is mentioned, I feel if you focus on the single line 34, it may sound one way, but if you read the entire verse, you get a different feel.

Looking at lines 35-39, you read the following:

35 For I have come to turn `a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law - 36 a man's enemies will be the members of his own household.' 37 Anyone who loves his father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves his son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me;38 and anyone who does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me.39 Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it."

I feel reading these lines that there is no violent conscious behind these words at all. Rather I think of the “sword” as almost like a Phaedrus from “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance” sort of metaphor. It’s dividing the light and the darkness and such, and it is a heavy sword for all those who wish to spread His teachings must carry, for the Truth is the most powerful tool of all and behind it there carries a major responsibility and testimony, but it is not a sword to fight with, rather a metaphoric sword to carry peacefully in seperating the darkness from the Earth and spreading his peaceful teachings, and it is not a tool to smite prejudice and hatred and violence among one another.

There are other shaky passages that I believe are blatantly misinterpreted often as well, in my heart, such as this, from Matthew 24, lines 6-8:

”6 And ye shall hear of wars and rumours of wars: see that ye be not troubled: for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet.7 For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places.8 All these are the beginning of sorrows.”

I believe it doesn’t mean it gives us the right to just pick fights each day until the Second Coming many of us believe in. I understand in the Good Book that governments were created for the sole purpose of maintaining law and protecting people within the borders. I truly support our young men and women in uniform, for I believe they DO have a purpose, and just like what was said in that verse. Protect OUR people, protect the people within OUR borders. I do support a defensive military that operates on our own soil, NOT an offensive foreign military. I understand too why we have detention centers and police academies and prisons and rehabilitation centers. We can always expect mothers and fathers to turn on each other and disobey the Law, we can always expect sons and daughters to turn onto each other, we can always expect twice removed third cousins to turn on one another. So we have these institutions and while I disagree with police brutality and violence and such, I understand why we have these institutions in our society.

Which is also why, while I don’t like to think about it and prefer not to, many fear about a mandatory draft returning, where ALL young citizens 18-26 or something like that would be forced to serve a two-year rotation of military or civilian service in the U.S military. The Good Book clearly speaks of all physically and emotionally fit men 20 years and older eligible to be drafted and participate in the military in the sense of nationalism. However, the Good Book also clearly says the following:

”Deuteronomy 20:8 (KJV):

8 And the officers shall speak further unto the people, and they shall say, What man is there that is fearful and fainthearted? let him go and return unto his house, lest his brethren's heart faint as well as his heart.”

That strikes me as the right to being a conscientious objector. If your heart is faint of fighting any war, you shouldn’t have to fight. It also specifically says if you just moved into a new home, or if you just started a new business, or if you were engaged to be married, or if you were just married and shouldn’t go to war for a year, males should be excused from having to serve. I know many veterans here from Vietnam who were forced to go regardless of these rules.

Frankly, I still can’t over how so many actually believe in this war. If you believe in war, you simply don’t believe in the true light of peace, period. And those of you who do support the war, I don’t wish no ill will or hatred to you. I just believe somewhere along the way there was miscommunication or misguiding. I pray to myself perhaps just like Vietnam, the “silent majority” will soon rise up and more and more will finally see the ugly monster of psychological warfare been created and the need to bury it once and for all, and work and set aside our differences and work to try and re-build communities rather than downscale them, to try and understand one another, understand where the terrorists are coming from, and work to rid of these terrorizing instincts.For, like it reads in Matthew 5, lines 3-9:

3 Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. 4 Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted. 5 Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth. 6 Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled. 7 Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy. 8 Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God. 9 Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God.”

So, let’s do it for peace, let’s do it for love, everyone, and do just as we are told in line 34 of John 13,

“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. 35 By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another."

Wow, I sure said a lot here! Let’s pray this war ends as soon as possible, as I will keep doing my part in protesting it as long as it takes, for the good and decency of our great nation, for the good and decency of this world, for the good of our young men and women serving down there who I hope return home as soon as possible to their loved ones and families, hopefully before Christmas (hey, it could happen! )

My previous post was a bit serious-toned, and I never enjoy being real serious, so I thought I’d end this day’s readings on an enjoyable note and treat you all with a bonus dose of mistletoe serum!

Speaking of religion and moral values, have you ever watched “Joan of Arcadia”? (I believe I talked about the show once before). I believe the show is perfect for everyone, especially teenagers and young Americans, in teaching God and values in a fun and positive way. It’s about a teenage girl named Joan Girardi (Amber Tamblyn of “General Hospital”) who communicates with God, who appears in many different forms and personalities, gives her directives, and she acts upon them and each episode leads into a whole different type of situation with a moral attacked to each episode. She also has a father Will (Joe Mantegna), who works as a police detective in Arcadia who works to make the community a safe place for everyone, and while experiencing the ups and downs with his family takes up many difficult cases due to heavy crime in the region, sometimes having to make very painful sacrifices and tough decisions, as well as a mother Helen (Mary Steenburgen) who teaches art at Joan’s high school who recently has been trying to get re-connected with God after a loss-of-faith experience with her son Kevin’s (Jason Ritter) accident, who also adds density to the show along with Joan’s other brother Luke (Michael Welch), a science-loving fellow with eyes for Joan’s friend Grace Polk (Becky Waelstrom), with an eccentric, rebellious, rough-around-the-edges but considerate persona. Barbara Hall produces and writes the show, who is a wonderful writer and role model for women and youth everywhere. I cried watching the season finale last season, when Joan finds out she had Lyme’s disease after experiencing several blurry, sickening, nauseus experiences just as she was finishing her first year at Arcadia High, and experiences a crisis of faith that has her struggling to recognize God and the devil, who tell her to do different things, and in result winds up in the hospital, seeing God standing in her hospital room in multiple personality forms, silent, refusing to answer her as she begs Him to speak to her, and through the grieving process she temporarily loses faith and doesn’t believe in God, but later again begins to re-discover her faith she lost. I also cried in that recent episode where Joan’s best friend Judith was stabbed and passed away in that episode while she was going on her first date with her boyfriend Adam, and since has been upset and desperate begging God for answers in why Judih had to go, and when her and her friends are discussing the best way to remember her, Joan remembers Judith wanting her to learn how to juggle like her so she learns to juggle.

I have to get this off my chest. I have a HUGE crush on Amber Tamblyn. I love Amber Tamblyn. She’s so lovely. She has this genuine personality of hers that makes her a wonderful, beautiful person to know, and a warm, comforting face. Did you know she’s a poet too? If you’ve ever been to her official web-site, she also shares some of her poetry with her, which has been published in some San Francisco publications like Cups and Poetry USA. I especially love “Plenty of Ships” and “She Howls” where she writes,

(sigh) I just love her personality. She even writes this brutally honest ramble where she talks about how hard Hollywood can be, and that she enjoys working there but talks about dishing out all the dirt on SCAM artists everywhere who try and take advantage of you and that in the Screen Actors Guild, only 5% work and the rest are hoping for auditions and are constantly feeling the heartache of rejection. Honesty is the most important quality to me and I just love her for being candid and guileless. She also is very politically-motivated as I am and shares my liberal views. Just when I thought I was one of few who cared at all about Buy Nothing Day! On November 26th, which is often considered the busiest shopping day of the year, which I celebrate this day because I believe we live in an obsessive-compulsive corporate climate and for just one day it would be nice to live beyond material means, Amber Tamblyn is promoting this day too on her official web-site! You go girl! (does happy dance) She has the same love of great activist networks (AdBusters.org, MoveOn.org, The Lahiji Project) not to mention a great taste in music (Ani DiFranco, Neil Young, Thelonious Monk). It kind of makes me blush saying this, but Amber’s the kind of girl I want to have in my life. (sigh) Hey, she was born only five months before me! I literally am a hopeless romantic, aren’t I? First Kristin Kreuk, now this! (giggles) That’s probably just the Scorpio in me again, we Scorpios often are entrapped star-crossed lovers! But Amber rocks on Joan! You’ll love her too I’m sure!

When I played Leonato in my senior year of high school Shakespeare production of “Much Ado About Nothing”, I remember in the auditions before our opening night that everyone seemed to be goofing around or preoccupied and Ms. Jensen was saying, “Come on, stay focused, it seems the only one putting passion into his role here is Noah! Put heart into it!”. I guess by passion she was referring to the part in the play where Leonato, who is bought into the deception of his daughter Hero being a tramp, bellows like a bullhorn, “Hero; do not ope thine eyes, for, did I think thou wouldst not quickly die, Thought I thy spirits were stronger than thy shames, myself would, on the rearward of reproaches, strike at thy life. Grieved I, I had but one? Why had I one?Why ever wast thou lovely in my eyes? O, she is fallen Into a pit of ink!” LOL! After acting that part out, with everyone aware of my gentle, shy, nice guy persona, I remember everyone stood frozen like, “Wuh-wuh-wuh-wuh-wuh-wowwwwwww!” (giggles)

A whole bunch of my fellow senior well-wishers were saying, “Hey, Noah my brother, ever thought of going to Hollywood?” I’ve always enjoyed acting and would love to get more involved with college drama productions soon, and indeed I am fascinated with living the star life. If I become big in music or writing and am given that chance, I will surely take it. But I do follow Amber’s advice in that Hollywood should be taken as a secondary option, like writing was first for her. Ever since I was Mistletoe Cherub, I’ve always loved movies and pop culture, and indeed, let’s be honest, we’d all dream to have one of those houses you see on VH1’s The Fabulous Life, if not for ourselves and our own material interests, for our families so they can grow up in a nice environment.

But just like with great power, with great fame, there comes great responsibility and commitment. The truth is, there are many in Hollywood who write or star in adventure flicks but never go on vacations with their families or explore the world beyond Hollywood and Vine anymore, there are many who write or star in fantasy flicks but they are so absorbed in thespecial lighting and green screens that they don’t have time to explore their imaginations and wild ambitions, there are many who write or act in romance flicks but have never fallen in love, or at least have a lasting love relationship or a family to come home too. Hollywood can certainly be a plastic environment, where all those catch-phrases you hear from Arnold Schwartzenegger and Clint Eastwood can be exciting at the cinema, but when you hear them through everyday dialogue, the catch-phrase culture can feel so long-winded.

Then you have to also just accept all the hype, teasing and juicy morsels that come included with the full package of fame. Ben Hecht once said, “People's sex habits are as well known in Hollywood as their political opinions, and much less criticized.” Maybe because I am a Scorpio I would be used to all that, as I am open about my celebrity crushes and romantic and sensual dream experiences! (giggles) But when it all becomes the run of the mill, there just isn’t any romance to it anymore.

So, if I ever get the opportunity to act or grace the red carpet, I’d love to. But I want to live life, not just have a life. I want to follow my intuition and pave my own tie-dye carpet through life and toward my dreams, and if they love me for it and more doors open before me, I will show them my appreciation being their guest of honor. Maybe I can play God on a future episode of Joan of Arcadia!

(sigh) My head feels light and tingly like a velvet balloon thinking about AmTam and my dream girl! I’m going up to my bedroom to daydream for a while!

Thank you for the kind words, Dear Grown-up Cherub! lol My head is spinning from reading all the words that spilled from your magnificent mind! Each journal is like going for a ride on a merry-go-round! So many thoughts, ideas, visions, emotions, information ~ and creativity! What a fantastic writer you are! ~ and a highly interesting man to boot!

I was intrigued by the voter/voting statistics that you quoted regarding the church-goers. Very curious indeed!

Thank you for the bible refresher! Reminded me of what I had forgotten! lol

As you know, I am a big believer in your abilities ~ and you walking down the Red Carpet is quite in the realm of possibility!

Thank you for sharing so much of yourself with your readers! To know you ~ is to love you! ~ and admire you!

Love,Your friend,Linda xo

Mistletoe Angel
Member Empyrean
since 12-17-2000
Posts 34110
City of Roses

A few of you sent me some amusing e-mails, sharing your own personal experiences of Portland (overwhelmingly positive I might add!) I just can’t get over how lucky I am to be here in the City of Roses so to do this illustrious city more justice, I’ll get down to the verdant heart of the matter.

The first major thing you should know about Oregon if you want to become my next-door neighbor is, if you want to pump your own gasoline, well, you can FUH-GET ABOUT IT! Oregon is only one of two states in the U.S of A (New Jersey is the other) where a gasoline pump is off-limits to the average motorist. Under ORS 480.315-320, passed over five decades ago, it reads, "An owner, operator or employee of a filling station service station, garage, or other dispensary where class 1 flammable liquids are dispensed at retail may not permit any person other than the owner, operator or employee to use or manipulate any pump, hose, pipe or other device for dispensing the liquids into the fuel tank of a motor vehicle or other retail container."

So, according to the rest of the text of the bill, if you accidentally pump your own gasoline, you are given a civil penalty that must be paid 10 days after order of up to $500. Out of curiousity I did a little research to find some rationalizations in the law, and they list 17 declarations. Some of them I happened to find very amusing.

10a) The significantly higher prices typically charged for full-service fuel dispensing in states where self service is permitted at retail discriminates against customers with lower incomes, who are under greater economic pressure to subject themselves to the inconvenience and hazards of self-service.

11) The increased use of self-service at retail in other states has contributed to diminishing the availability of automotive repair facilities at gasoline stations.

14) Self service dispensing at retail contributes to unemployment, particularly among young people.

17) Small children left unattended when customers leave to make payment at self service stations creates a dangerous situation.”

I mean, personally, I don’t know, it’s tempting to be the trapezoid, but I don’t really buy numbers 11 and 14 especially. Ah well, everyone’s happy I suppose. It must be even more amusing to visit the other 48 states and be told to keep your hands off that pump. Many in every other state must compare something like that to that you can’t buy your own Wonder bread off a supermarket shelf. I don’t exactly see a rationalization behind the law, but, I’m not complaining! I'm a walking protest machine! Got no car, need no oil!

The second thing is here in Oregon, we have no sales tax. Yippee! That’ll give my fingers much needed rest in digging for pennies! Benjamin Franklin once said, “Nothing in life is certain but death and taxes." How true that still is, though we get off quite a bit easier here, hehehe! (giggles) I believe Alaska, Delaware, Montana, and New Hampshire are the only other states without a sales tax, although in some Alaskan cities I’m told they charge a 5% sales tax. I’m lovin this!

Oh yeah, there are some other crazy laws you should be aware of before moving here:

• Canned corn is not to be used as bait for fishing.• It is illegal to buy or sell marijuana, but it is legal to smoke it on your own property• One may not bathe without wearing "suitable clothing," i.e.,that which covers one's body from neck to knee.• Ice cream may not be eaten on Sundays (Ha ha, I’ve rebelled against this fifty times already!)

If you live in Beaverton, you have to pay a $10 permit to be aloowed to install a burgular alarm. In Eugene, they say it is legal to conduct a horse race or a symphony concert! In Hood River it is illegal to juggle without a license. In Klamath Falls it is illegal to walk down a sidewalk and knock a snake’s head off with your cane (maybe their lawmakers took Whacking Day on The Simpsons too seriously) In Stanfield, no more than two people can share the same drink. In Marion, ministers are forbidden from eating garlic or onions before delivering a sermon. In Myrtle Creek, if you want to box with a roo, well, that’s just too bad, because you can’t, bloke! And, finally, right here in Portland, I am not allowed to whistle underwater, I’m not allowed to have a wedding ceremony at a skating rink, and can’t wear roller skates in restrooms (Aw man, but you know how I love roller-skating in movie cinema restrooms after the show!)

Nah, I’m not using any scare tactics to keep you all out of the City of Roses! (giggles) But the law is the voice of the land after all, and if it is a crime to eat Ben & Jerry’s Karamel Sutra on Sundays, then consider my entire current past here checkered! LOL! I don’t know, maybe if you put a noseplug on, you might get away with whistling underwater! Who doesn’t enjoy whistling underwater? Not me!

Yep, ol’ “Stumptown” has its share of celebrities as well. Thanks to Matt Groening, unlikely star streetnames like Terwilliger Boulevard, Flanders Street and Lovejoy Street have become luminary to pop culture thanks to his Simpsons. And yes, before you ask, it is true the infamous Tonya Harding was a Portland native for quite some time. Did you know such hit movies including “The Ring”, “Free Willy” and “Mr. Holland’s Opus” were filmed here? Did you know that “Mr. Holland’s Opus” was filmed at Grant High School, where my younger sister Ellie now goes to? We live only two blocks away from this Hollywood archaeological site! And finally, who could forget where another one of Portland’s many nicknames came from; “Little Beirut”? You can credit that to the passionate demonstrations formed when Ronald Reagen, George H.W Bush, and George W. Bush came to town! Yep, we’re all a bunch of progressive martyrs! (giggles)

The “City of Bridges” has a very diverse environment and the city is considered divided into five major parts, with four corners and North Portland. In the northwest corner, you have the Pearl District (the only part of Portland I really stay away from) which is more upscale. This whole area used to be a major warehouse area until they have converting the district into upscale lofts. There’s also the Old Town and Chinatown districts, which I’ve walked through a many number of times, including in my weekly rallies.

Northeast Portland is where I live. It’s the most racially diverse area of Portland, with some of the most high-land value neighborhoods like Irvington and Hollywood. Much of the area between Killingsworth and Fremont is considered “da Hood” where you’ll really feel their diverse culture. There’s also the Lloyd Center, where I always cross through on my way to the university and on my way back home, and the Rose Quarter, where Portland’s only major league sports team, the Trail Blazers, play.

Head on over to the southwest corner and there you’ll find my favorite crash pad, Pioneer Courthouse Square, which is often called “dowtown’s living room”. Have you ever heard that Everclear smash, “I Will Buy You A New Life”? where Art sings, “I will buy you that big houseway up in the West Hills?” The West Hills are right here. They’re a more suburbian part of Portland that’s very expensive. And all three major Portland colleges are located here, Portland State University, Lewis & Clark, and Oregon State.

My absolute favorite corner of Portland, however, would have to be the southeast side. All around the Belmont and Hawthorne districts, you’ll feel a very Bohemian, hippy-esque culture. I love to hang out every weekend and smell the sandalwood in Jambo World Crafts or reload my hemp lip balm cache at the Third Eye Shoppe. Plus, you get a great view of Mt. Tabor just standing on the corner of Hawthorne and 39th at eight-thirty in the evening on a midsummer day. During the summer, I would just sit back on a bench in Laurelhurst Park and that’s where I wrote some of my more mystifying poetry like “Tourmaline” and “Neptune Retrograde”. Once you move east of 82nd Avenue, it begins to look a lot more uglier and run-down, but everything west of 82nd is appeasing.

Veritably, I am having a mad love affair with Portland radio. Sometimes hearing the variety here, I feel robbed when living in Colorado, where I feel as though I was never given any eclectic taste. I am madly in love with KBOO community radio (that’s 90.7 on your FM dial). Each day of the week has its own multifarous programming line-up, with a different host for each music, spoken arts, news and activism segment. Right now my mind’s been sapid to the sonorous bliss of Jazz in the Afternoon. My personal recommendations of don’t-miss programming are Kaleidoscope Sounds with Delilah Brazil, Vinyl Pajama Party with Brian Combs, and Dr. Zomb’s Stereo Obscura. KBOO is killer!

But what I love most of all about Portland is that it is so easy to get around this city. In contrast to living in the suburbs, where I was stuck around at home, failing to get around and enjoy eveything beyond my backyard, you can walk anywhere, do anything. I’ve never felt sexier in my life. I just slip on my Birkenstocks, fly out the front door like a sparrow just married, and smile as I grace down Broadway. I look back on a long Monday where I walk over ten thousand steps, when some doctors say walking at least 2,000 steps a day on average helps you from gaining any additional weight, and I say, “That’s sexy!” I still can’t get over losing nine pounds in such a short span of time, especially when I’m in a major growth state of my life. I was always right about average in weight and below average in height, but now ever so often I hear, “Hey Noah, you look a lot thinner than I last remember!” (giggles) I feel I am in total control with myself now and have the impulse and stamina to do anything. Fellow protesters in Portland have already said I’m “the sexiest protester they’ve ever seen in Portland”. (blushes) Some explained by saying most protesters always wear black hoods and have grave, dirty, woebegone faces with shipwreck expressions, but I arouse the crowds with my bright colors, smile, and my shaking of the hips and twirling on my heels. I was called a lot of things back in Colorado, but “sexy” was never a synonym there. And I believe it is healthy to feel naturally sexy.

I’ve been writing some new material, by the way! Soon I want to record this cover of Jefferson Airplane’s “Somebody To Love”. You gotta love Grace Slick’s voice. I already know I myself can’t make justice of her one-of-a-kind voice. She has one of few most unconventional voices in all rock and roll, along with Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, Frank Zappa and Neil Young. She has always been quite the character, perhaps being credited for the first major use of the F word in a “Volunteers” song, not to mention I believe once trying to mix LSD into Nixon’s tea (giggles) She’s a wild child, but this kid’s alright! I don’t know what she’s doing now (I think she’s a painter) but I still love her! Let’s hope I win her approval for my version of the track, cuz she may very well get medieval on me!

Whew, this is a loaded entry! Then again, I kept you starving for more for seven-and-a-half months, so it’s only fair I feed you with these longer entries! Hopefully these updates will suffice for the holes I put in your stomachs! (giggles) Think I’ll be off now for another soiree with my feet! Strike a pose to the sun, everyone!

Some of you who may be perplexed or overwhelmed by the corporate climate in this post-election season so much, you know you want to break away but just can’t think of the best strategy in doing so, I thought I’d give some advice to you.

First things first, when you go out to eat, try all you can to eat at locally-owned diners. When you go to get your groceries, either go to a privately-owned supermarket or a small local chain (a.k.a Trader Joe’s, Zupan’s). When you go to get your coffee, try a different locally-owned coffee shop each time rather than Starbucks. My parents now have an insurance office set up on the second floor of a commerical bungalow at 15th and Broadway, right above Ruen Thai restaurant, where the owner Pai has been grieving a bit about Bush being re-elected, thus the (un)Patriot Act certainly staying in place, where rigid security measures will keep Pai from getting his adopted child from China he has longed for. Often I love to dine there on the weekends or occasionally on a day during the week. Their lemongrass soup and vegetable curries are killer! Then, two doors down across from the birkenstock store Footwise and a clothing store, there’s Peet’s coffee, a locally-owned chain, where I often like to get my jasmine pearls, and just down 15th street across from the Lloyd Center, there’s Bibo, where they make fruit smoothies, and the delicious acai bowl, a rare fruit bowl topped with bananas, yogurt and hemp toasted granola.

But if you absolutely have to cross into corporate territory sometimes, it helps to know which companies have contributed to political parties and which party (if not both) they contribute to. There are many companies that catered to the GOP interests this election season, sometimes the facts can be overwhelming. But there are those that lean the other way as well, rest assured of that.

The following is a list of corporate money that went to partisan political campaigns in 2000, broken down by Dems and Repubs. Flooding the democratic process with corporate dollars erodes democracy regardless of this or that party, which the system itself is dangerously flawed and corrupted by corporate influence. I have highlighted the corporations that leaned Republican in red, corporations that leaned Democratic in blue. Of course I don’t consider myself a Democrat either, and even question the ethics of some Democrat-leaning companies like Levi & Strauss, Martha Stewart Living and Costco, but you’ll get the general idea here.

So, as you can see, so much of our climate is influenced by corporate interests, which also sadly partake cultural interests in adversarial manners. While I’m at it, I would also like to share to you the Top 25 Republican Party donors between 1999-2003 with global consumer brands. Some of the following companies aren’t quite so adversarial, like I know PepsiCo gave about just as much to other parties, but still is good to know. (Source: Ethical Consumer magazine)

Being aware which corporations support which political parties and agendas might help you make more informed choices as you vote with your purchases this holiday season. For YOU, YOURSELF, possess the most powerful weapon in the world, the mighty dollar. So if you feel powerless in changing the state of the environment, the economy, and this senseless, immoral war, think again! You have the CHOICE to decide how and where you spend each dollar you so righteously earn, and until these corporations cease to all adversarial public funding of the current administration, fight the power!

And just because some corporations are abusing their wealth and authority on living conditions everywhere doesn’t mean there aren’t sensible alternatives. I strongly support the investment in the underdogs, in small-cap stocks, many of which are independently-owned companies, many of which are barely heard of. That is why I am a fervent fan and follower of The Lahiji Group, where a 20-year old stock guru and mutual fund manager Christopher Lahiji decided to rather invest in the small companies instead of the Altria’s and Microsoft behemoths, and he spent a whole year just paroosing through annual reports of almost 13,000 companies, assembling 149 he thought most underrated and recommended being invested in. I just find what Lahiji has done evry admirable, and I believe he has already launching the next major grassroots movement of America. His official web-site is located here:

Personally, I find protesting and living free from an overwhelmingly corporate climate so very sexy. I admit it’s a challenge, but we can do it. Hey, Rosie the Riveter said we can do so so she has to be right! I’m already taking a huge step in trading this Microsoft for an Apple, and I’ve been doing my homework in finding a dentally-proven alternative toothpaste to Crest. I feel sexy already for already effectively remaining free from everything Altira, not to mention travelling the organic way; by walking. I haven’t spent a single penny on gasoline this entire year! More power to me!

And, finally, please, if you still have strong feelings and frustrations after this election, don’t wait four years to express your dissent! Get involved! For there are many other ways to fuel the fire for social change. Find out about the local grassroots and activism organizations in your area and volunteer! These organizations are the ones that are making the change locally in your community, for the way the work for social progress has always went is to think globally, act locally. HELP THEM OUT! If every year we could raise money and rally support the way people did for the Kerry/Bush campaigns, surely these organizations can have the funding and numbers they need to make the change we want to see in politics! Just take one or two hours of your time a week at least, that would mean much not only to each organizations working hard for the good of all of us, but mean much also to the world at large. Be persistent. Don’t let the grief and anger tear you up inside and have you concede defeat. Use the catharsis of emotion and sustain it into a catharsis of hope, of passion, of vision.

Here’s a few organizations I find to set a great example for the re-building of democracy and social change:

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http://www.codepinkalert.org (Multi-generational women’s group for peace, committed to taking the streets with smarts and style and strategy)

http://www.kfa.org (Krishnamurti Foundation of America: Krishnamurti stated about education, "Present-day education is a complete failure because it has overemphasized technique. In overemphasizing technique we destroy man. To cultivate capacity and efficiency without understanding life, without having a comprehensive perception of the ways of thought and desire, will only make us increasingly ruthless, which is to engender wars and jeopardize our physical security." (Education and the Significance of Life)

http://www.gandhiinstitute.org (The mission of the Gandhi Institute is to apply the principles of nonviolence as a force to prevent violence and to resolve personal and public conflicts locally, nationally and globally through research, education and programming.)

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http://www.nationalhomeless.org (Advocacy network of homeless persons, activists, service providers, and others committed to a single goal. That goal is to end homelessness)

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http://www.warresisters.org (Believes that all war is a crime against humanity. They are determined not to support any kind of war, international or civil, and to strive nonviolently for the removal of all causes of war.)

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http://www.peacetaxfund.org (Non-profit advocacy organization that works solely to pass legislation which would provide a way for citizens to participate in the tax system without violating beliefs about conscience and war)

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Gandhi said, “You must be the change you wish to see in the world”. So, be the change. Be the vision. Be the passion.

As I promised earlier this week, I now will provide you with the scoop on exactly what the behemoth Altria owns (formerly Philip Morris) who happened to be the largest corporate donor to the Republican Party between 1999 and this year. When you first look at their vast inventory, your first response will obviously be that you’re overwhelmed over how much they own, but know there is far more to life beyond the corporate climate and YOU possess the greatest weapon of all, the dollar bill, so YOU have the right to spend it any way you want to, and if you want to see to it your very dollars don’t go into funding this senseless war in Iraq or environmental destruction or suppression of civil liberties, YOU can do so simply by not buying into these corporate gargantuans and look for healthy alternatives. As long as Altria decides to continue encouraging this senseless war in Iraq and the selling of products that encourage tobacco sales and advertising for smoking aimed at young adults, etc. that lead to higher costs for medical service, I am declaring myself Altria-free.

Yesterday, as always since I have moved to Portland in June, where I attend the weekly Portland Peaceful Response Coalition rally at Pioneer Courthouse Square at 5 sharp, I was encountered by a conservative-leaning columnist for a local Christian magazine, who claimed he was running a project on understanding the progressive movement and the instincts behind it. He asked me for an interview and I agreed to accept it, because, after all, I was aware he may have been trying to run a smear campaign of sorts in an effort to take soundbytes and make us look hypocritical or like heathens, but I believe personally it is important to be building communities and understanding one another and where we’re all coming from, so I let them interview me. In a way I consider myself an anthropologist, who’s been working to understand the behavior of our society at large and where we went wrong.

He asked me some tough questions, particularly on the war in Iraq and “wouldn’t you consider that liberation?” or “No democracy, Iraq is going to have elections next month, I beg to differ sir, why do you think that?” and I applied my knowledge of the Good Book and my personal experience to my answers, responding saying, “Look, Martin Luther King Jr. said, “All men are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality!” I believe everyone in the world desires and dreams to be free, to find peace. Where we disagree is how we go about achieving freedom for all. Look, this war is a very sensitive topic and I don’t want to storm up any more brimstone here, but I just believe in my heart that war only divides people and throughout history, I believe war has never solved anything. Weapons may be vanquished and heinous men may be dethroned, but the tension always remains, and it can always erupt any time like a volcano all over again! No, I believe in the non-violent form of peace, and that peace should be achieved through open arms and understanding.”

One question that made me smile was at the very end, where he was finished talking about the war and asked me, “You appeared to look very happy tonight in the rally. You looked like you were in love. Why is that?”.

I was so happy to see him noticing that, because that’s just what I want to accomplish. I answered by giggling, “I wish, I want to be in love more than anything in the world!” then telling him, “I believe protesting is a form of art in itself, and, like all art, should be inspiring, enthralling, intuitive. Often when we think about protesters, we depict images of black hoods, heads looking down, dirty faces, and lots of angst. Personally, I’ve overcome many obstacles in my early life because of my differences, which encouraged bullying on me, seizures, nightmares and suicidal thoughts. But, there were many loved ones who came and accepted my differences and for who I am and their love and compassion helped get me close to God and to see the sunshine and rainbows in life, and I believe if I can overcome years of adversity like that, I can overcome anything. Look, I don’t believe it is disingenuous to smile in times of crises. Everyone needs hope, and though I feel passionate and saddened on much of what’s happening in the world, I believe you have to take the tears and grief and transfuse them into positive energy. Thomas Paine said, “It is necessary to the happiness of man that he be mentally faithful to himself” I quote William Blake as well when he said, “The essentials to happiness are something to love, something to do, and something to hope for.” I truly am a happy person now, and believe especially during this holiday season, I must keep giving the gift that keeps on giving, which is the faith I hold in my heart, the faith for better days ahead, and they say smiles are contagious, so I find it healthy to smile, healthy to bring this positive force behind the concerns of each rally!”

His question made me smile also because, if some think I must be in love now when I’m not, I think, “Just imagine how you’ll feel when you really ARE in love!” (giggles) Sometimes I think maybe my eyes will literally be shaped like hearts and beat strongly, bulging out of my eyes, or a blizzard of pink hearts will come bubbling out of my ears every time I sigh with eyes half-closed, half-lost in a dream experience! (sigh) I don’t even have a girl yet, yet whenever I have nothing to do and I have romantic, passionate daydreams of my dream girl, I just want to lie in my bed under my velvet covers and dream for a few hours, and often I like to kiss my velvet blanket in slow-motion, gently caressing my lips against the soft fabric, often gently gently brushing my church tongue against it, pretending it’s the luscious lips of my dream girl that I’m kissing for the first time. (blushes) I literally am having an affair with my blanket! (giggles) The day I finally have my love dove in my arms, and she says, “Mmmmm, you’re a good kisser!” you’ll know where I got my practice!

As you know, I am very open about my celebrity crushes. You know how I love Amber Tamblyn, Kristin Kreuk and Shakira! I also absolutely love Michelle Branch. She had a steamy, scandalous photo shoot for the January 2004 issue of Maxim early this year, which I own that issue and her sultry centerfold actually inspired my sexy summertime pop poem, "Dressed To Grill". (giggles) I had much respect for Michelle Branch already for writing her own songs at such a young age and already establishing herself and going multi-platinum by just being herself, and I believe she has much potential behind her as she continues to grow. Then, after seeing her pose, oooohhh, she has both a cute face and a hot body and personality! (giggles) Often I just love to stare at her on the cover, where she looks so bold, beautiful, and so very sexy! I love Michelle. She's featured as my laptop desktop wallpaper.

Jamie-Lynn DiScala (a.k.a Jamie-Lynn Sigler) also has that cute, sweet type of sensuality to her. She truly can seem like the shy, rapturous songbird she really is, as her name is Meadow Soprano on the Sopranos (I love that name) but she also has a sassy, bold, playful nature to her that makes her captivating and seductive on screen! Keep warblin', sweet Meadow!

Manton said, “Desires are the pulses of the soul; as physicians judge by the appetite, so may you by desires.” (giggles) I’ve been having these strong feelings ever since I was 14. Sometimes I feel as though I must have the strongest libido in the world or something, or I feel as though mine malfunctioned and I wonder if it is supposed to be natural to feel lovesick when you’re not even in love. I had strong feelings for Joanna when we used to talk all the time, just as she temporarily had strong feelings for me, and my love for her was very strong, even when we never met. We were star-crossed misunderstood lovers. My love for her inspired me to make her a ceramic heart for a Christmas gift, send her bath & body products and a stuffed Tigger doll, write about a hundred poems all dedicated to her. For hours at a time every night, I’d talk to her on instant-message, and I remember often she felt sad because she didn’t like her body image or something, and I told her ever so much how much I loved her and she was angelic to me, and then she’d always write (kiss kiss) on the screen and those single moments made my head feel dizzy and my cheeks shine cerise and inhale as deep as I possibly could so I could let out the most amorous sigh. (sigh) Our love didn’t last, and she won’t talk to me anymore, and we never met, yet that time we felt a spark in one another alone made me feel lovesick every day.

They say Scorpio is the sign of sex and those like myself are the most sensually energetic of all the signs. They say union with the beloved is a “sacrament”, or “an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace." and that Scorpios love to lose themselves passionately in love to discover the mystical meaning of the union that’s greater than individuality and to be married both spiritually and in flesh. (sigh) Astrologists say our appetites are virtually insatiable, and we are effortless in attracting lovers and are pretty magnetic. Many astrologists also agree that emotionally we tend to be vulnerable, and the best types of signs to have healthy relationships with both emotionally and sexually are Pisces, Taurus and Cancer, while sexually we can choose about any sign!

Though I disagree with some of what is said about my sign, like mentioning we are more susceptible to fevers than most signs (I’ve only been sick twice in an eight-year span and didn’t have a fever either time) and that I don’t enjoy crime and punishment and law enforcement, I don’t enjoy keeping in touch with the dark side of life, as I prefer to stay on the sunny side of life because the sunny side makes me feel most empowered and inspired, and they say Scorpios have a keen business sense and love making money, but in fact I believe I am the opposite of that as I can’t even understand basic terms like “checks and balances” and have no interest in knowing what it means.

But I believe I truly am what they say about my sign in my love life and sexuality. I really want to “get laid” as they say and dream of loving a girl with all my heart. But I want to love everything about my dream girl when I finally have her in my life. I don’t only want to feel her warm body, I also want to love and cherish everything she is; her heartbeat singing with mine, her warm tears of joy, the light in her eyes, the soft trembling of her lips, the soft brushing of her eyelashes as I hold her close, the glare of her soft sliky hair. I’d love to find freckles on her body and trace constellations with them, or paint pictures softly with my hands upon her goddess body. When I love my butterfly angel, I want her to be the one who feels most alive, special, and loved. I believe love and sex are important parts of life, and the latter should be something special, a magical metamorphosis of love and friendship where two hearts are incubated in the light of ones everlasting love for one another. When I make love to my Mistletoe Angeless, I want the experience to mean something, to be a special moment that will never be forgotten, and want the experience to be so incredible that the next day my dream girl is wearing an angelic smile throughout the morning, and she feels this way every time I can’t keep my eyes off of her. And each moment she feels sad and is in tears, I want to be there for her and kiss her tears away, and each moment she is in doubt, I want to be there to talk and be open and honest with her. I want to love my angel in every way possible, and have an everlasting strong emotional relationship too, whether it is with a Pisces, Taurus or Cancer or not.

I’m not in love, but I feel lovesick, and I love how that feels, and can only imagine what really being in love must feel like. Don’t worry if I fall in love soon and I’m missing from Passions for two weeks. During that time I’ll be head over heels with my girl and when I’m not with her lying in my bed dreaming of her for hours and writing love songs making beats from every skipped heartbeat my heart will be beating.

Rainer Marie Rilke said, “Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart. And try to love the questions themselves.” Portland is the third-best city for re-locating singles in this great nation, and I believe there are many beautiful girls who are dreaming and looking for someone special just as I am, and I believe, I truly believe with all my heart, that my dream girl may be among them, yay! Then my eyes will truly be shaped like hearts and beat like my heart, yay! (sigh)

(sigh) I’m going to lie down and daydream for a little while now and continue practicing my first kiss with my velvet blanket! (sigh)

Oh, my! I am so thankful that you informed me that it is against the law to knock off the head of a snake with a walking cane! But then again, I don't have need of a cane because I'm an "angel" and I fly everywhere! But as the saying goes, "forewarned is forearmed"!

Your posts are so interesting and informative! I'm beginning to feel like a native Oregonian! Oregon is becoming my second home ~ and I've never even been there! You are bringing the State to your readers!

You should also put your journal in a time capsule! You have so many statistics and interesting tidbits about the world of today, that it would be fascinating for future generations to discover and read! Mind you, I also think that your memoirs should one day be published so that it can reach a wider audience! You are a walking (flying???) encyclopedia! ~ and an entertainer!

Gandhi said, “You must be the change you wish to see in the world”. So, be the change. Be the vision. Be the passion." ~ and that you are, my wonderfully spirited friend!!!

Now regarding your lovesickness, I hope your angeless comes along soon! You are a volcano waiting to happen! lol My goodness! She'll be in for the ride of her life! I have a feeling that it won't be long before she finds you!!!

Keep the faith and keep on smiling,LindaP.S. I have no doubt that you are Portland's "sexiest protester" ~ in person and personality!

[This message has been edited by Earth Angel (12-13-2004 03:32 PM).]

Mistletoe Angel
Member Empyrean
since 12-17-2000
Posts 34110
City of Roses

Often during the holiday season, we think not only of our dearest and loved ones, but in the stretch between Thanksgiving and Christmas, we often think of those who seem as though they have no families, have no mothers they could go home to for the holidays or daughters that would fly into town to visit. Often we think of the homeless as well, who I have identified with ever too often. Everyday I walk through downtown, I get an average of 16 to 20 “Do you have any spare change?” responses, and ever so often I’m just sad I don’t have any change to offer them, because most of the faces I seem look genuine and you could see the bloodstains in their eyes, with an honest, gravid stare.

All at once, while we think of those who have fewer, they’re often taken for granted all the same. Job 29:12 says "I rescued the poor who cried for help".We must awaken more to the cries of the poor not just as a nation, but in this world. Each day I take my magnaminity mission to heart, and it is not just a physical routine I abide by, it is my spiritual experience, my religious experience. In Proverbs 19:17, it reads, “He who is kind to the poor lends to the Lord, and he will reward him for what he has done.” I truly believe this with all my heart, for if I alone get that warm smile after seeing an orphaned child get that gift he had been dreaming of so long or when an elderly citizen feels comforted during the otherwise lonesome times at a community center when a high school student or girl scout comes to visit, imagine just what God must be thinking.

Don’t get me wrong here. I believe it is a wonderful thing to purchase gifts or your loved ones and have nothing against that. I myself buy presents perennially for my loved ones with money, because after all, who doesn’t love some new music or a good book? But I also believe under this corporate culture, we often overlook the finer things of the holidays, and often individuals are left behind, not feeling so jolly. Every child loves Santa Claus, with his shimmering beard, rosey cheeks and a laugh all guttural and mirthful, so shouldn’t it be a magical experience every year? Should there be more to it than just the selective hiring process at Sepia Digital Event Photography, a 15-year-old company based out of Houston, Texas, where about one in 75 are selected to be Santa?

After all, the gift-granting main attraction at a local mall near you is hired, groomed and trained much like any other employee. The only difference is, he has a legendary namethat is the envy and delight to all who love the holiday season. Sepia alone currently employs 85 Santas and over 500 elves-called the cast and crew-and is contracted in 44 malls around the country, including the Lloyd Center in Northeast Portland. We can date back the history of Santa’s appearance in malls to the 1950s, according to the International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC). Even before then, most Santas lived in department stores for the Holiday season. Back then, parents would have to wait weeks to receive photos of their children with Santa. With recent advances in digital photography, however, pictures of any size are available almost instantly.

According to the Star Tribune, each mall offering visits with Santa will spend nearly $22,000 on decorating, building Santa villages and the like, and some mall owners believe that having a Santa increases patronage. Moreover, the majority of malls will celebrate Santa's arrival with a special event, usually a parade, special breakfast, or reindeer feeding.For the most part, photography companies are responsible for placing Santas in malls every Christmas. Usually the mall provides the decorations, and photo companies provide Santas, elves, and photographers. But Sepia and Noerr and other big companies have really built-up single-handedly the wonderland in each mall, hoping to fulfill the whole of each child’s imagination who would just love to sit on Santa’s lap and declare what they want for Christmas.But Santa alone can’t make the holidays happy. Remember always that the magic of Christmas lies in your heart. Won’t it be utterly special to share that magic to someone unconditionally? And if you have the opprtunity to spread much more cheer beyond your family, your loved ones, your friends, your nices and nephews, your twice-removed third cousins, why not to those who need it most, who often are presently doubting anyone will lift their spirits up at least for a day? After all, it says in Proverbs 21:13, “If a man shuts his ears to the cry of the poor, he too will cry out and not be answered.” I believe in the philosophy, “The more you give, the more you get!” and usually what you get is not of material worth, but spiritually you feel a spark set a flame in the hearth in your heart, a feeling you don’t get from a box or a package.

Today, I did just that, opening my ears to the cries of the poor by sacrificing my late sleep to head over to City Hall at 9:30 in the morning and making a testimony opposing the so-called Sit-Lie Ordination, which I believe discriminates against the rights of citizens and the sidewalks and the homeless. Title 14 is the section of city code that governs the use public space, and now over the past several years, the City Attorney's office began a process of rewriting this section of the city code. This revision was intended only to clarify the language in this code and to bring it into compliance with state law. In January of this year, attorneys from the Oregon Law Center, the ACLU of Oregon, and the Metropolitan Public Defenders objected to 13 of the proposed revisions in Title 14, which they said would "enact numerous new criminal offenses and . . . vastly expand the offenses that already exist."

The most famous of these new criminal offenses is the proposed "Sit/Lie" ordinance. The "Sit/Lie" ordinance makes it illegal for a person to stand, sit or lie on a public right of way if that conduct "'would cause a pedestrian or other user of 'any part' of the right of way reasonably to take action to move around or avoid” that person. "Because at any time a person stand, sits, or lies on the sidewalk she 'would cause' another using that particular area of the side walk to take action to move around her, the ordinance can be read to permit law enforcement officers to treat, any sitting, lying or standing on public right of way as criminal conduct."

I believe I am speaking for everyone when I believe in my heart that these are our streets and sidewalks and crosswalksand we must see to it they are treated with the utmost respect and those who commute and walk upon them each day. But here in Portland, a place with an unemployment rate of 6.5% and at least 1,600 homeless citizens always on the streets, who have no place else to go, they need the sidewalks to sit and think things over or to recline next to a wall in their sleeping bags, where they consider their beds. It is crazy enough we even have homeless citizens, but it is ludicrous when you’re taking away a homeless individual’s right to seek refuge in public squares, etc.

The ordinance, named P.C.C. 14A 50.030, reads the following:

Guidelines For Enforcement of P.C.C. 14A.50.030 (Obstructions As Nuisances)

P.C.C. 14A.50.030

OBSRUCTIONS AS NUISANCES

A. Unless specifically authorized by ordinance, it is unlawful for any person to obstruct any street or sidewalk, or any part thereof, or to place or cause to be placed, or permit to remain thereon, anything that obstructs or interferes with the normal flow of pedestrian or vehicular traffic, or that is in violation of parking lane, zone or meter regulations for motor vehicles. Such an obstruction hereby is declared to be a public nuisance. The City Engineer, the City Traffic Engineer, or the Chief of Police may summarily abate any such obstruction or the obstruction may be abated as set forth in Chapter 29.20.

B. The provisions of this Section do not apply to merchandise in course of receipt or delivery, unless that merchandise is permitted to remain upon a street or sidewalk for a period longer than 2 hours. The vehicle in which merchandise is delivered is subject to all parking regulations as described in Title 16.

So I made my testimony today at City Hall, claiming, in that the propnents themselves have confessed there hasn’t been a consensus arrangement on the ordination yet, that this is impulsed by impatience and lack of faith in our existing pedestrian code and that there is too much helter-skelter and discrimination in this ordination. The civil liberties of the homeless must be respected, and I believe there just needs to be more of a public effort, more storming and norming to see to it there is responsibility to the law while also not suppressing the rights of the homeless, day laboreres and the whole city. If we can no longer use public sidewalks to chat with friends, take a rest, wait for a ride... what other community rights can be taken away?

Why do I bother doing this. Because I believe it’s a pure, kind gesture, and in my spiritual experience, on my Good Samaritan vision quest, I’ve recognized more and more the notion that we must "Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of all who are destitute. Speak up and judge fairly; defend the rights of the poor and needy." (Proverbs 31:8-9)

But, I had a great time, getting out and for the first time ever speaking at City Hall. Mayor Vera Katz seemed impressed by what I brought to the table, and after my testimony, she said to me, “You seem to me like you’re quite a thoughtful, bright, charismatic young man. It is young individuals like yourself who bring passion to the community. Out of curiosity, migh I ask, what made you want to move here?” And I said, “I’ve travelled around much of this great nation, and four years ago I was enthralled by the natural scenery and atmosphere of Portland. Not only that, but I also believe Portland has a great pride in its cultural diversity. The culture always inspires me!” and then I saw the smile on her face as I left the bench. We’ll have to see where this goes from here, and I welcome the challenge ahead!

If you have been looking back at my previous politically-toned entries, and are intrigued by challenging our obsessive-compulsive corporate culture, yet seem bewildered where to begin in celebrating this Christmas season without giving away multitudes to corporate behemoths, this Mistletoe Angel is always here and happy to help out.

Again, I’d like to mention once more I have personally told my parents to limit their spending on me and give much of my Christmas money instead to contribute to the charity Heifer Intenational (http://www.heifer.org ).

It is a non-profit 501 organization which every tax-deductible purchase of a gift animal or tree seedling helps families around the world in third-world countries become self-reliant, and ensues also the plants and animals are healthy and are treated with respect under their mooto, “Ending Hunger, Caring For The Earth”. Since 1944, Heifer International has helped more than 4.5 million families in more than 125 countries. They basically have believed in the philosophy since 1944 that if you “teach a man to fish”, or are provided sustainable amounts of food and income, they can lift themselves out of hunger and poverty permanently. Many third world nations sadly are not given the chance or these sustainable numbers by their governments, and to the critics who think $13 billion is just too much to ask for in providing basic health care and nutrition needs to the world’s poorest people, that is exactly how much Wall Street gave as bonuses in 2000, so as you can see, hunger has little to do with nature and everything rather with how we allocate our resources. And I believe by contributing to this wonderful organization, I am lifting someone or a family out of hunger, poverty and environmental degradation. After all, Christmas is the happiest time of year, and I want to see it I make those in less fortunate communities have something to cheer about this year.http://www.goodgifts.org/goodgifts

The Good Gifts Catalogue is another great and creative way to give the gift that keeps on giving AND for the good of the less fortunate! They’re in their second year now as a charity, thanks to their trust director Hilary Blume, who set up this charitable site after being flooded with countless unwanted wedding anniversary gifts. You can buy anything, from phone cards to children in care, prisoners, refugees, to dog training programs, to bicycles for Ethiopian midwives so they and their children can visit more local villages, to planting some silver birches, to building a village library. Their catalog is rich, diverse and innovative, designed to make a graceful gesture full of holiday spirit tin touching the lives of the less fortunate who, like you and I, believe in the values and tastes and interests of friends and family that mark the significant occasions of life. Generously chip in a few bucks for a box hive so children in Zimbabwe could have honey, or a dowry for orphans in Rwanda, or saris and warm shawls from weavers in Gujurat to protect widows and poor women in north India during the cold winter and to get closer to earning a living wage, anything. Have fun and give a hand.There are a number of other like charities and philanthropist organizations you can also contribute to, if you are tired of getting Chanel no. 5 and want to give a gift that can make a lasting impression. Here are some I visited I also found meaningful:

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http://www.mytwofrontteeth.org/?c=1002 (MyTwoFrontTeeth.org's vision is to reduce the pain of poverty and help strengthen the bonds of society by bringing simplicity, efficiency, and personalization to the charitable gift-giving process, thereby encouraging all to experience the incredible power and joy of giving)

http://www.vetaid.org (Non-profit, international development organization working for reduction in poverty and increase in food security of people dependent on livestock.)

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Finally, try and find some time in the next week and a half to volunteer an hour or two at your local rescue mission. It is the gift of the heart, through involvement and community-building, that helps feed and care for the hundreds of homeless and needy men, women and children. Unconditional acts of kindness is great stewardship. Give generously to make a difference into their lives, become a friend to the homeless! I’ve volunteered myself numerous times before when working at the Denver Rescue Mission, serving french onion soup and warm rolls to a diverse group of residents, helping store away the bread in the storage room, and then, yep, I also was happy to help out with cleaning dirty dishes smothered with macaroni and cheese and ranch dressing. I even got a break time and got to talk to some local residents, who would tell me their own anecdotes and life experiences, and they truly made me feel welcome and all toasty inside each holiday season. It’s an enlightening experience.

So, take some time and help prepare and serve some meals to hometown residents, assist with the stuffing and distrbution of Christmas stockings for the children before Christmas, help out with the Adopt-A-Family program and provide impoverished families presents and a dinner to make their Christmas day special, help pack and distribute food boxes to needy individuals and families, volunteer at the Santa Shop, meet up with two to five friends of yours, call your local Family Rescue Ministry hotline, and set up a mentor session, anything of these sorts is wonderful. Or, you could also always give a monetary gift to help provide hot meals, safe shelter, clean clothes and Christian counseling to hungry, hurting, and homeless people. It’s these simple acts of kindness that bring out the Christmas cheer not only to others, but in ourselves.

I leave you with these words I also find immesnely meaningful:

"When you give a luncheon or a dinner, do not invite your friends, your brothers, your relatives or your rich neighbors;if you do, they may invite you back and so you will be repaid. But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind and you will be blessed. Although they can not repay you, you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous." (Luke 14:12-14)

Why does Scrooge love Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer? It’s not because every dollar is dear to him, but because every buck is dear to him! (giggles)

(giggles) Linda, do you have something you have to say here about your history between you and snakes? (giggles)

I feel I haven't done portland nearly enough justice yet, like I could never give Boulder enough. Isn't the "City of Roses" just the prettiest name? When I can find my dream girl and kiss her, I could comfortably declare out loud, "I had my first kiss in the City of Roses!" (sigh)

(giggles) I'm just tellin' it like it is! (smiles) I am convinced if I just say it as it is and it can be published as an autobiography, I feel I can do anything. I've never felt sexier in all my life, and I love feeling spiritually, emotionally and physically sexy.

Awwwwwwww, thanks sooooooo much as always in encouraging me that true love will find her way to my heart! I absolutely hope you're right, who knows, tomorrow, maybe when I turn the corner of 39th and Hawthorne, maybe I'll trip on her shoelace, and she'll help me up and see a little cut on my cheek and I'll gaze into her beautiful angelic face as she licks a cotton swab and wipes the dirt from the scrape! (sigh)

Mmmmmmm, I see! (giggles) They say we Scorpios are the sexiest sign in the zodiac, but what is often misunderstood about our sign (astrologists often agree we are also the most misunderstood sign) is that we're not just sexy in that we love sex and are great at making love, but that we also love to transcend ourselves in the spiritual aspects of life. The phoenix is one bird that relates heavily to the sign of Scorpio, which is the confident, courageous, positive transformer that transcends the personal ego, which I often believe I am, having been hurt ever so often before, but only rising up again and becoming stronger. That's an incredibly sexy feeling when you feel the troubles of the world have crashed on you like a meteorite, then after the dust settles, you rise again, with fire burning around your spirit and casting prisms and wearing one sexy smile. I love that "sexiest protester" label and will keep arousing the city with all the sexy inner-essence of me; the sympathy of the dove, the intuition of the eagle, the determination of the phoenix, all part of me. I'm me, and I love living emotionally, physically and spiritually sexy.

hey, yo, this is zack, noah's cousin, visiting from chicago, and i just wanted to come on in here and say something and wish you all a merry christmas too.

noah's such a great guy. each day after school, i just like to check to see if he has written something new or added to this journal. honestly i generally don't like hippys because they're dirty and i don't really like hanging with those who don't shower, but noah is one i admire very much. he really loves and understands people, and he's cool. he's that kind of person that loves to bring out the best of each moment, see good and hope in everything. some often say i'm negative in how i view things, but i like how noah sees life. he sure loves to smile and yep he sure loves to dream. in fact yesterday he told me he was having lovey-dovey daydreams again and said, "hey zack, i'll be right back, i'm going to go daydream for a while!" and after twenty minutes or so, he came back down and said, "hey, want to go on a walk?"

i guess one thing i think most highly about my cousin is that he really does cry, but also wears a smile most of the time when he isn't crying. i want to learn to be able to smile like he does. he's very honest about how he feels.

yeah, it's all good. i'll be going back home real soon, and i miss my cousin as always. that's ok though, his journal makes me feel he's talking to me all the time.

hey, i'm out. bye, and merry xmas!

zack

Mistletoe Angel
Member Empyrean
since 12-17-2000
Posts 34110
City of Roses

Zack, thank you so very much, firstly, for your most kind and loving words. They mean so much to me, and you know how much, as always, that I love you from the bottom of my heart!

Last Friday around 9:21 P.M, my cousins flew into Portland International Airport from Chicago, where we immediately drove from there for three and a half hours to a beach house we rented down in Waldport. Where the forest meets the sea. Yep, we tunneled down Interstate 5 into Albany, then took Route 34 straight through Corvallis, along the Wells and Crooked Creeks and gliding along with the Alsea River, across the Siuslaw National Forest and straight into Waldport, catching up on times and wailing along with the B-52’s and Postal Service on the way through the passes and switchbacks. In case you want to encounter our little love shack on a scenic drive, it is 5198 SW Pacific Coast Highway, right in the heart of Waconda Beach.

I have always loved my cousins very much. Zack is a Virgo (September 21) and his sister Brandi is a Taurus (May 2). Virgos have always fascinated me because it is the only zodiacal sign represented by a female, often referred to as a “potentially creative girl, delicately lovely; sometimes as a somewhat older woman, intelligent but rather pedantic and spinsterish.” I also understand very much how Virgos often lean toward conservatism in many aspects of life, from emotions to opinions. I am blessed to have one of his deep friendships, as I understand how when we’re young, we often are in camouflage and grow to find trust out there in others. I believe we all conceal emotions every once in a while like Virgos often tend to do. Virgos are really practical and sophisicated individuals, and often are indulged and aware of all the possible shortcomings in each passing moment. Zack truly is a still water running deep, and deep down, even when others may find difficulty sensing the true sympathy and kindness in his heart with his shy reserved demeanor, I have known it. (sigh) They also say because responsibility and perfectionism often puts Virgos to the test and therefork irks them if something goes wrong, they can tend to be worrisome or cynical sometimes. Zack did say that often many say he’s negative in how he looks at life, and I do sense that, though I believe he also makes a great effort in always looking beyond the prudence and overspeculation. Zack is really into music. He plays the guitar much better than I do, as well as the drums, and I have great faith he can excel as a musician. They say Virgos naturally make great musicians, as well as bookkeepers, chemists, welfare workers, critics, and physicists. I love Zack very much and see great potential in him.

(giggles) And yep, they do love good hygiene too, noting in his special post he made that generally he doesn’t care hanging around hippies because of their bad hygiene! (giggles) I do shower, by the way, and understand his sentiments very much. I respect that. After all, a Lebanese proverb reads, “Hygiene is two thirds of health”. I’ve said ever so much I believe it is wonderful to feel naturally and spiritually healthy and sexy, and I make sure I live up to my lips!

Brandi is a Taurus, one Taurus I also love very much. They’re also very practical just like Virgos, fairly conservative, and love aesthetic tastes of art, music and luxury. They’re very down to earth, and believe that beauty cannot be owned, only appreciated, and can be very deeply siritually inclined. Brandi is really into the life of France and the French, and I can see why, because they really love the arts, luxury and the pleasures of life. Gotta love that too!

We reached our beach house just south of Waldport about fifteen minutes after midnight Friday. It was quite a cozy little nook. The kitchen was narrow and all, but, hey, we got two showers! There was quite a lot of central heating, in fact it was quite hot in the house, but you can’t beat the heat. After leafing through the many bookshelfs and sailor paraphernalia, I set up my bed on the orange couch in the southwest corner of the house, which seemed to be the sunroom of the house, and slept there while my cousins took the bunkbeds just outside the room, my mom took the red living room couch, my sisters one of two rooms on the north end of the house, and my dad alone in the remaining room next to it.

Saturday, I slept late, fifteen minutes past noon, and I got up to take some long strolls on the beachside, first taking about two thousand steps south in company with Zack and my dad, then around dusk between four thousand to five thousand more the opposite direction with Brandi and my sisters (we found at least twenty sets of sand-dollar halves). Most of mid-day, my parents were gone doing some Christmas shopping up and down the coast, so I hung around the house, eating mangoes and Cinnamon Toast Crunch, playing backgammon, and opening up their Christmas present early that they insisted I do (I got a Tangrams calendar and twenty-five bucks). Then, when they returned around 6:30, shortly after we headed down to The Drift Inn in Yachats (official web-site: http://www.the-drift-inn.com ) for some great northwest cuisine. Well…okay…so what I ordered wasn’t exactly northwest (Vegetarian Teriyaki Rice Bowl) but I made sure I kept the cultural flavor in by purchasing some Black Pepper Fries as an appetizer. I’ve been vegetarian for almost a year now so indeed when living in the northwest, you kind of fall out of culture without the blackberry hazelnut salmon, pan seared halibut or seafood chowder seasoned in Greenland cockles. Ah well, can’t please everyone!

Then, once we got home, because my sister’s present so happened to be the beautiful film Amelie, we decided to tune in and spend our evening watching this intuitive cupcake waitress solve the mystery of life and open herself to love! Amelie may very well be my favorite cinema philanthropist! Can’t go wrong with someone who brings along her widowed father’s lawn gnome on a tour of the world to cheer him up in his longing to travel AND reverses the doorknobs and reprograms the speed dial of a grocer who's mean to his assistant! Amelie earns a special place on my long list of friends, hehe!

We were particular active on Sunday, when we decided to head on up into Newport, the Friendliest. Did you know that in 1855 it was right here where new settlers discovered oysters, before the city was founded in 1882? Newport is a thriving fishing harbor, but surrounded by the small city and community spirit. I love walking along the waterfront and staring out across Yaquina Bay, or walking along the docks and peeking at the seals that lollygag down on the planks just over the water. We just parallel-parked along 8th Avenue, walked up and down Bay Boulevard, saw the seals, peeked into many great shops including Jambo World Crafts, and got some salt water taffy including some egg nog pieces, mmmmm, good holiday spirit. Afterward, we headed on down to Seal Rock State Park, two and a half hours before the high tide at six o’clock, where we stayed till around 4:15, dipping our feet into the agate sand and checking out the tide pools. In fact I also found a starfish high up on the beach sand (must have been desposited there overnight by the ebb) but it felt a bit moist still so I would have felt guilty keeping it, for as much as I’ve always wanted to collect a starfish I found myself on the beach before my very eyes, I also don’t want to feel guilty knowing it was still living and having to kill it softly. So I gently placed it on a rock over the water where the sea water can kiss it and just celebrated the moment that I even luckily found a starfish. I think that counts for something, yay!

My dad wanted to attempt to make a beach fire so me and the girls decided to head down to the Grand Central Pizzeria at 245 Highway 101 to pick up some dinner. I got myself a Bento bowl and some more of those black pepper fries to go. Unfortunately, returning back, we learned the wood was just too wet and were unable to start a real fire. Ah well it’s all understood. I would have loved to sing a Kum-Ba-Yah acappella, but this is December, and I suppose even when you’re not at home, home is still where the heart is. So we just aimlessly chatted the night away and watched Tommy Boy on USA.

Check-out time being at eleven, we left the house around 10:30 Monday afternoon, crooning along to some records Zackary conveniently packed with him, including The Killers’ “Hot Fuss”, Green Day’s “American Idiot” and some David Bowie. We returned to Portland around 1:30 and my cousins finally got to see our current house, which received critical acclaim from Zack. We immediately decided to head out, joined up with my sister’s new boyfriend Mike, and share the sights and sounds of the City of Roses to our patient cousins, after I cooked up some rice, where our first stop lead us over to the Portland State University campus, where we then hopped aboard the Portland Streetcar and headed over to 10th & Couch, where the nation’s largest single bookstore, Powell’s, is located. We spent about a hour just wandering through the literary dirge factory, piling through sepulchers of poetry and grottos of political science. After my beloved Brandi picked up some new selections, we headed back on home, where we had some soup and I jammed with Zack and Mike much of the rest of the night with my acoustic. Mike was showing me some interesting finger-picking exercises, like making polyphonic strumming loops with the first and third strings up the neck from the 12th to the 5th frets, which I kind of incorporated into my own little solos.

Yesterday was probably my favorite day being out with the cousins. First, learning that me and my sisters all got my dad the exact same gift for Christmas (we all love Aimee Mann and we figured we should check out Til Tuesday for him) I stopped by the Borders in the Yamhill District to return my duplicate and traded it for The Pretenders’ “Learning to Crawl”. Then, we boarded the Streetcar and headed over to the 23rd Avenue District, where there are many upscale, trendy little shops (they often are nicknamed”trendy-third”) We had some lunch over at Pepino’s Mexican Restaurant, then went hopping between apparel, cosmetic and music shops. It’s a nice lil’ Bohemian enclave indeed. Me and Zack even decided to put on a little makeup at Coreen Salome. I do like the feeling of powder on my cheeks, and I do believe I look good with santorini eyeshadow. (giggles)

But my favorite part of yesterday was when we all went to the Grotto (The National Sanctuary of Our Sorrowful Mother) (http://www.thegrotto.org ) a beautiful 62 acre Catholic Shrine and botanical garden administered by the Friars of the Order of Servants of Mary, to cherish the amazing display of Chrismas lights and cheer on the choirs chanting at the Grotto’s 600-seat chapel. I always believe it was a most wonderful thing, and feeling, to attend at least one choir concert each holiday season, because the music is one thing that lifts our spirits during this time of year, and often it is the children who are singing these enchanting songs you know by heart, and both music and children are the essence of holiday spirit to us all. I was blessed to have heard the Mountain View High School Sound Celebration and the Eastwinds Flute Choir perform, all those high school kids sounded beautifully. The tension and repose in “Breath of Heaven” literally made me cry, it was especially moving, as was classics like “Silent Night”, “I Wonder As I Wonder” and “The Thunder Man” equally moving. I believe it would be a wonderful tradition for all to attend a choir concert at least once every Christmas season, it is the best honey you can get for your holiday tea.

My cousins are just about to leave, and I am blessed to have spent some wonderful time with them this very first holiday season in Portland. I love them very much, and, remember, all of you are always welcome here. I would love to have a chai latte with any of you anytime over at the Hawthorne Café. Heck, I’ll even make the holiday deal eligible throughout the year and top you up with some whipped cream and raspberry on your holiday mocha. For I am the Mistletoe Angel, and I do all I can to spread holiday cheer 365 days a year!